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The greatest compliment one can pay to Weird West is that it does, by and large, capture the feeling of playing one of the pulpy EC Comics and Two-Fisted Tales that inspired so many supernatural Westerns in the past. From its beautiful two-color art style and creepy morality fables to its omnipresent leathery-sounding narrator, Weird West is a fully realized grungy dimestore cowboy fantasy brought to vivid life. The game you actually have to play to make progress in it isn't as resounding a success, however. Weird West wastes no time knocking you off-kilter. The second you hit the New Game option, you, an unnamed hooded figure, are strapped to a chair while other hooded figures brand your neck with an arcane symbol and shove you into the body of one Jane Bell, a former bounty hunter who's hung up her spurs for the quiet life on a farm. Unfortunately, she's forced to go full Unforgiven after a gang called the Stillwaters raids her farm, kills her child, and kidnaps her husb...

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands isn't the first time that first-person shooter franchise Borderlands has delved into a realm of high fantasy--developer Gearbox Software initially explored this genre in the Borderlands 2 DLC-turned-spin-off Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep back in 2013. Almost a decade later, Gearbox is venturing back into the tabletop board game of Bunkers & Badasses for a self-contained tale of swords, sorcery, and the power of stories. While it has inherited a number of the more annoying Borderlands quirks, Wonderlands is still a comfortably familiar experience that wears its passion for tabletop gaming on its sleeve. As a standalone Borderlands spin-off, Wonderlands doesn't require knowledge of previous Borderlands games to jump into. Instead of focusing on a story about Vault Hunters pursuing alien ruins that house artifacts of incredible power, Wonderlands shifts the focus to recurring side-character Tiny Tina and her latest tabletop gaming session....

We don't talk nearly enough about the fact that Kirby, on a conceptual level, is terrifying. Yes, the smooth wad of pink bubble gum is adorable--no one is debating that. He smiles incessantly while waving his little arms and waddling on his disproportionate feet, and he's always there to say "hiiiiii" in a cheerful manner. But Kirby is also an abomination, a Frankenstein-esque experiment created in a lab run by a mad scientist named HAL. He gleefully inhales other creatures, swallows them, and absorbs their powers. I'd call him Thanos, but he doesn't have the proper anatomy to wear a world-shattering gauntlet… yet. Sadly, I have to report that we've allowed Kirby to get too full of himself (and others), and he's reached his ultimate form in Kirby and the Forgotten Land. The culmination of 30 years of exploring the malleable mascot, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the most inventive and best entry in franchise history. The move to 3D brings Kirby's ...

Tango Gameworks' The Evil Within and its sequel are quintessential Shinji Mikami games, brazenly following in the footsteps of Resident Evil 4 by mixing survival horror and action with an over-the-shoulder perspective. The studio was never meant to be an avenue for Mikami's own creative vision, though. Tango was established with the aim of showcasing new and talented young creators, and Ghostwire: Tokyo is the first game to really demonstrate this aspiration. There's nothing else that can compare to its peculiar brand of open-world exploration and supernatural combat, as it borrows familiar elements and combines them with new ideas in imaginative and surprising ways. It may stumble at times, but the sheer creativity and attention to detail exhibited throughout constantly shine through. Ghostwire: Tokyo's story begins at a rapid pace with one of its protagonists lying dead on the floor. After being involved in a fatal car accident on Tokyo's famous Shibuya Scramble ...

After the unmitigated disaster that was WWE 2K20, publisher 2K Games took the bold decision to give developer Visual Concepts an extra year to work on the next game in the series. Annual sports games are very rarely, if ever, given a year off, but WWE 2K22 is proof of the benefits that can occur when development isn't confined to a tight yearly turnaround. It's a massive step up from 2K20, improving on nearly every aspect of the long-running series. The in-ring action has been reworked and improved, the variety and quality of its game modes has increased, and there's been a major decrease in the amount of unrelenting glitches afflicting each and every facet of the game. Some legacy issues persist and not all of the new additions are successful, but WWE 2K22 still represents a recent high mark for the series. This all begins once you step inside the ropes of the squared circle for the first time. WWE Superstar Drew Gulak is on-hand to guide you through all of the new change...

Initially, I thought Tunic was little more than a reverential homage to The Legend of Zelda. Its isometric viewpoint might skew from the top-down perspective used in early Zelda games like A Link to the Past, but the other similarities will be immediately familiar to anyone who's ever embarked on a Hyrulian adventure before. Both Link and Tunic's adorable fox protagonist have a proclivity for wielding a sword and shield while donning green clothing and exploring all manner of abandoned temples and dense woodland. Tunic's first 30-minutes or so do little to dispel the comparisons. Gradually, however, this begins to change. Before long, you'll find yourself desperately fighting to survive, emerging from tense and engaging battles with only a sliver of health left, all while uncovering the compellingly abstruse secrets of this mysterious world. As it turns out, Tunic has less in common with Zelda than it initially seems. Instead, it's a genuine Souls-like. Gallery ...

When it was first announced back during E3 2021, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin quickly became something of a meme, thanks to protagonist Jack's repeated insistence of his overwhelming, intrinsic need to "kill Chaos." It was funny because he just would not shut up about Chaos , but the marketing for the game never bothered to explain who or what Chaos was. The big takeaways from the announcement were: Final Fantasy, angry protagonist, Chaos. But having access to the full game, somehow, adds almost no additional context to Jack's need to kill Chaos--at least, not until well into the game's 25-hour-ish run. In fact, for the first few hours of the game, Jack is literally walking up to every big, scary monster boss waiting at the end of every level to ask, "Are you Chaos?!" Of course, we proceed to kill them. And, usually, they are not Chaos. It goes on like this for a while. This long, confusing digression about Chaos exemplifies the stran...

The original Puzzle Quest expertly fused match-3 gameplay with a fantasy setting, turning standard Candy Crush-style puzzles into a full-on adventure complete with cutscenes, turn-based battles, and special powers. Puzzle Quest 2 built on the idea further, adding towns and dungeons to be explored, multiple questlines, and expanding on the turn-based match-3 system. Now, a decade later, Puzzle Quest 3 has emerged, stripping away a lot of what made those games unique and offering up a more streamlined experience. The result is a game that, while fun in spurts, becomes tiresome quickly thanks to repetitive and unvaried gameplay beset with rudimentary RPG elements. Puzzle Quest 3's core gameplay loop is unchanged from the previous games: matching colored gems in order to deal damage to an enemy and gain energy used to cast spells and abilities. There are multiple ways to play, including a huge, 14-chapter story mode, daily and weekly dungeons that give rewards, and competitive multipl...

Assassin's Creed has long experimented with its protagonists having magic-like abilities, oftentimes explored in post-launch expansions. Dawn of Ragnarök is the latest, adding to Assassin's Creed Valhalla by pivoting from Eivor to delve into the story of Havi, the Æsir who is most well-known as Odin. Dawn of Ragnarök doesn't quite reach the highs found in Assassin's Creed's previous myth- and legends-focused expansions, falling short in both delivering a compelling narrative and fully embracing its initial open-ended gameplay loop. However, Dawn of Ragnarök does satisfyingly evolve Valhalla's combat and navigation via a rewarding assortment of cool mythical powers. In Dawn of Ragnarök, Havi travels to Svartalfheim to save his son from Surtr, the flaming Isu warlord of Muspelheim. Surtr has invaded the land of the dwarves with an army composed of giants from both the icy Jötunheim and fiery Muspelheim for some unknown purpose. Though Havi has no interest in lea...

For as long as there have been Destiny and Destiny 2 expansions, those expansions have followed a specific formula. The add-ons have always been standalone offerings with new guns and a new playable destination, dropping players into a new story more or less independent of what came before. Each included a pile of new content and a fresh story campaign, but they were less like subsequent chapters for a living game than semi-discreet new modules bolted onto an existing, sprawling whole. The Witch Queen changes all that; rather than connecting something new and separate onto Destiny 2 with no context, it instead is an organic, evolutionary outgrowth. This is Bungie's live game molting, emerging from a cocoon as something better, smarter, and more complete than it was before. Back when it was first discussing The Witch Queen, Bungie called the expansion's new story "the definitive Destiny campaign." Despite being marketing speak, that statement has turned out to be ...

Triangle Strategy isn't the spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics that it appears to be. Though the HD-2D game certainly looks like the venerated strategy-RPG, it quickly becomes clear from playing that this is a game that wants to forge its own identity with a mixture of new ideas and streamlined systems. And while some of these improvements make for a better, more modernized take on the 1997 grid-based strategy game, others remove a level of player agency and tactical character development that were vital to making that classic feel so special. The story of Triangle Strategy takes place on the continent of Norzelia, which is split into three nations: the monarchical Glenbrook and Aesfrost, and the theocratic Hyzante. Each controls its own particular natural resource that's crucial to the survival of all three kingdoms, and this has led to conflict in the past. We pick up 30 years after the "Saltiron War"--a conflict over Hyzante's salt and Aesfrost's...

Large-scale strategy games tend to struggle with their endgames. Boiling down decisions made over hundreds of turns into a satisfying win-state is no simple task. Victory conditions often feel arbitrary, even disconnected--as if the competing factions are not merely pursuing different strategies, but playing different games. Even if that's not the case, winning a game typically happens hours before the game recognizes it, and the rest is just a matter of slogging your way to the inevitable conclusion. Total War: Warhammer 3 is no exception. It may be the series' most spectacular, varied, and tactically rich entry yet, but its endgame problems reverberate throughout the whole campaign, undermining a strategic layer that deserves better. Warhammer 3 makes an excellent first impression. The prologue is a mini-campaign that feels almost like an RPG in the way it zooms in on one major character and offers a strong throughline as you gradually explore the map. Short cinematic scenes...

"Oh go on, just one more go," screams my inner monologue as I try for what feels like the 9,000th time to rack up a gold standard time on a National A license test, "You're only 0.15 seconds off, you can do it." Once again I miss an apex, brake too late, or turn in too early, and I fall shy of the highest tier. I swear quietly and hit retry again. And probably several more times afterward. That's the joy of Gran Turismo 7: You can always do better, you'll always want to do better, and it's just a few quick button stabs away. In the latest entry in the PlayStation's top-flight race series, perfection isn't only famed producer Kazunori Yamauchi's aim--it swiftly becomes yours. It plays as close to driving a real car as you can get on a console, and much like shaving a few seconds off your commute, or playing on your favorite road in the real world, the game draws you in with challenges, physics, and luscious visuals. The first numbered Gra...

For as long as there have been Destiny and Destiny 2 expansions, those expansions have followed a specific formula. The add-ons have always been standalone offerings with new guns and a new playable destination, dropping players into a new story more or less independent of what came before. Each included a pile of new content and a fresh story campaign, but they were less like subsequent chapters for a living game than semi-discreet new modules bolted onto an existing, sprawling whole. The Witch Queen changes all that; rather than connecting something new and separate onto Destiny 2 with no context, it instead is an organic, evolutionary outgrowth. This is Bungie's live game molting, emerging from a cocoon as something better, smarter, and more complete than it was before. Back when it was first discussing The Witch Queen, Bungie called the expansion's new story "the definitive Destiny campaign." Despite being marketing speak, that statement has turned out to be ...