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It's a weird year for Call of Duty, as Modern Warfare 3 arrives with mostly recycled content in a game that is looking to sell you on nostalgia. However, despite being a hodgepodge of old ideas and content from previously launched games, this continuation of the rebooted Modern Warfare series still manages to deliver lots of exciting multiplayer with fast-paced movement and an extraction-style Zombies mode that keeps you hooked on the gameplay. On paper, Modern Warfare 3 sounds like it should be suffering from a chaotic identity crisis, as it's cobbled together with many parts of previous Call of Duty games. It's a direct sequel to 2022's Modern Warfare 2, but the standard map pool at launch exclusively consists of the full map set from 2009's original Modern Warfare 2. Additionally, the game's third game mode is a Treyarch-developed Zombies experience, which plays on Warzone's upcoming battle royale map with tons of features pulled from Black Ops Cold War...

Super Mario RPG is one of the wildest games in Nintendo's catalog. Loaded with eccentric characters like a Santa-esque big bad, random bouts of dark comedy--Toad cosplayers tickle as a form of torture and a four-eyed dog swallows you whole and comments on the taste--and moment-to-moment gameplay that is as raucous as it is eclectic, Super Mario RPG memorably capped off the SNES lifecycle. Fittingly, the new Switch version is one of the weirdest remasters I've ever played. Its surface-level appearance as a modern Mario game is merely a facade. Relentlessly faithful to the original, Super Mario RPG is a bold and largely successful experiment. In fact, it's misleading to refer to Super Mario RPG as a remake, especially in a year where numerous remakes, such as Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space, have retooled beloved classics for modern sensibilities. Heck, I'd even say Super Mario RPG is closer to Metroid Prime Remastered. Yes, the graphics here were fully remade--this isn...

Over the years, Atlus--the studio behind the Persona series, Catherine, and Shin Megami Tensei--has developed a reputation for the way it approaches adult themes and dark topics unabashedly. While this generally makes for an M rating and the mild discomfort that accompanies the clumsy handling of delicate situations, it also makes complete sense. Many of the studio's titles explore humanity and the human condition, both of which contain their fair share of darkness and messy situations. They're ambitious topics to explore, and for that, I've always had tremendous admiration for Atlus and its Persona series in particular. But even more important than simply starting the conversation is the way the studio frames it--how it juxtaposes the darkness against powerful messages about courage, morality, hope, and idealism to make everything more meaningful. These things combined are what make Persona so beautiful--what shapes its identity. Persona 5 Tactica not only exemplifies th...

Two years ago, Fair Play Labs and Ludosity entered the platform fighting game ring with Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. The game was decent enough, but it was clear that the core "Smash Bros. with Nickelodeon characters" idea had more to offer than what was delivered. Now, with Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2, the two studios are attempting to realize that potential.. However, while some welcome adjustments have been made, there are a few important flaws--and some mind-boggling subtractions--that once again keep the full potential of this idea out of reach. The most notable improvement Nick Brawl 2 makes over other platform fighters is its control scheme, which carries over from the previous game and yet still feels genuinely innovative. Character movement, shields, and throws are all standard fare: You move your character with the stick, press a shoulder button to grab for a throw, and press a different shoulder button to bring up shields or dodge opponents' moves. Attacking,...

In the opening of You Will Die Here Tonight (YWDHT), my Resident Evil-inspired super-cop solved a confusing book-based puzzle and ventured into a secret underground lab, where she was then met with a monologue from her ally-turned-enemy. To my surprise, this Albert Wesker-like big bad then shot my character dead--all in the first 15 minutes. It was like starting a Resident Evil game in the final scene and then getting a dark ending where the villains prevail. With a touch of meta commentary on the genre, this unconventional introduction was an intriguing start, but also the last part of the game I truly enjoyed, as the game thereafter ran through too-common horror tropes without cleverly subverting or enhancing them ever again. In the aptly titled You Will Die Here Tonight, Resident Evil is the blueprint for a two- to four-hour-long isometric, survival-horror game with a touch of roguelite progression. That fun intro I detailed would've been a neat story track to stay on, as the ...

Perhaps I was naive to think that the legend of Kazuma Kiryu actually wrapped up with Yakuza 6: The Song of Life , and that his appearance in Yakuza: Like A Dragon was simply a nod to longtime fans such as myself. Having played through Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name , I'm now convinced that leaving Kiryu to grow old in the shadows wouldn't have been the right move. Although Gaiden is a bite-sized story--noticeably shorter than previous entries--it proves that there's still so much more to Kiryu's legacy. From the wild new Agent fighting style to the wealth of captivating side activities and tried-and-true Yakuza story drama, Gaiden is a tight package that's akin to a 'greatest hits' for the franchise. While it may feel like a retread of previous games at times, the formula is no worse for wear and continues to finds ways to surprise me with its straight-faced delivery of absurdist humor. Gaiden acts as a middle chapter that flows into th...

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's campaign picks up where last year's Modern Warfare 2 left off. Captain Price's iconic Task Force 141 is back in action and, as teased in the final cutscenes of Modern Warfare 2, the new threat is Vladimir Makarov, a major antagonist of the original Modern Warfare franchise. Modern Warfare 3 sparks a hot opening with an early reveal of Makarov, but the introduction of the new Open Combat missions disrupts the story's pace for a fizzled-out ending. Modern Warfare 3 reunites Price's team with several familiar faces from the rebooted series, including Kate Laswell, Farah Karim, and Alex Keller. General Shepherd and Commander Phillip Graves of Shadow Company also return, despite their treacherous actions against Soap, Ghost, and Los Vaqueros in Modern Warfare 2. It's an all-hands-on-deck situation with Makarov in the picture. The campaign opens with Operation 627, a mission in which you stealthily break into a gulag. This linear lev...

When it launched in 2020, Ghostrunner was quickly recognized for its slick blend of satisfying first-person parkour platforming and tough-as-nails, one-hit-kill combat. Perhaps most impressive was just how well it practiced restraint, never overstaying its welcome while also keeping the focus keenly on its engaging traversal and action. Ghostrunner II is a sequel that hasn't entirely lost the captivating nature of its core gameplay loop, but in expanding the world that you're playing in and trying to find new elements to introduce into the mix, it loses itself along the way at times before finding its feet once again. Ghostrunner II takes place a year after the events of the first game, with cyborg assassin Jack now comfortable in his role as enforcer for the Climbers, one of many gangs trapped in the cyberpunk tower of Dharma. While the original Ghostrunner had a story, it wasn't a core focus, instead simply providing some context to keep you moving forward. In the sequel...

Video games often deal with the end of the world and thinking about how cool it might be. Like, sure, it sucks that most everyone has to die horribly for the end of the world to take place, but those of us who survive might get to shoot evil marauders or rotting mutants or giant bugs. Or maybe there are evil marauders, rotting mutants, and giant bugs who are trying to bring about the end of the world, and you can shoot them to prevent it. In any event, the idea of finding fun settings that let you dispense death without really worrying about the consequences tends to bring something of a positive spin to the apocalypse. The Talos Principle 2 isn't just about the possibility of the end of the world, but the real, legitimate, logical fear of it--one based not on religious abstraction or a distant extrapolation, but an understanding of past mistakes. It doesn't use that possibility for a fun setting with monsters to blast or a villain to chase and instead leans into a more peac...

RoboCop: Rogue City is a love letter to the 36-year-old sci-fi franchise. Teyon, the studio behind Terminator: Resistance and Rambo: The Video Game, clearly has a soft spot for '80s action movies, and this reverence is woven into the very fabric of Rogue City's design. From the environments to the soundtrack to the satirical style, it captures the look, sound, and vibe of the first two RoboCop movies with exceptional aplomb, while also making you feel like you're fully embodying the titular supercop. Pistons whir with each heavy footstep of your titanium frame as you shrug off damage and methodically dispatch criminal scum with the lethal precision of a machine. There's something admirable about this adherence to authenticity, yet being a near-unstoppable force doesn't always make for the most compelling video game. Rogue City often appears as though it's stuck at a crossroads between being faithful to the source material and presenting an enjoyable first-person...

WarioWare is a series built on gimmicks. The very idea of "microgames" on the Game Boy Advance was a silly, novel idea, and every iteration since then has tried to match that gonzo style. At this point, the real measure of a WarioWare game is how well the new schtick works to deliver its frenetic rapid-fire games. For WarioWare: Move It, Nintendo has repeated the pose-based games from the Wii's WarioWare: Smooth Moves. But while the games are as wacky as ever and frequently hilarious, many of the poses (or "Forms") themselves are too complex--which creates friction for the players and sometimes even for the Joy-Con controllers. The unusual nature of the pose mechanic is apparent right away when the game asks you to acclimate yourself to holding the Joy-Con controller in a wonky sideways position: face buttons inside your palm or facing outward, controller turned to the side so that your thumb is positioned to hit the ZL or ZR button. If you imagine you're o...

The Star Ocean franchise has been an underappreciated one within the Japanese RPG genre. Despite being around for more than 25 years, it's never had the breakout success that elevated it to new heights, as something like Persona or Tales have had in more recent years. Many longtime fans consider 1999's Star Ocean: The Second Story to be the best entry, and now Square Enix has remade it for modern consoles. Star Ocean: The Second Story R is a remake that manages to not only have the retro feel of its older PS1 and PSP incarnations, but also make it feel fresh with new battle mechanics, as well as audio and visuals updates. It may not be the big break that’ll finally make the Star Ocean franchise explode in popularity, but it’s a fine Japanese RPG on its own terms. The Second Story's plot follows an energetic young man named Claude C. Kenny and a caring young girl named Rena Lanford. After disobeying his father's orders and touching a malfunctioning piece of teleportatio...