HIGH The atmosphere is top tier.

LOW Repetition and recycled content.

WTF …Happened to my save file?

Like every games writer approaching the end of the year, I’ve started to compile a list of my top 10 games of 2025 in an effort to appease the algorithmic gods that give this writing hobby of mine some semblance of meaning. As someone who is less constrained by the new release schedule than many, I like to focus on my top 10 experiences regardless of release date, so I don’t have to overlook any titles that impressed me. With that being said, here’s a sneak preview:

Pacific Drive is likely going to take the gold.

Loading into the original title, I expected a narrative heavy driving adventure. What I experienced was an extraction-based survival challenge with a large splash of SCP and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The player’s time is divided between maintaining their car’s condition by avoiding dangers in an anomaly-filled forest and looting every resource they can find in order to upgrade the car for even deeper ventures into a mysterious place called The Zone. I’m not a car guy, but I loved every second of my time exploring and learning about how the world worked, and by the time I was set to leave my garage for the final time, I had an appreciation for a game that tried something different and nailed the atmosphere it was going for.

With the recent release of the “Whispers in the Woods” expansion, I took the opportunity to grab my car keys and hit the road for another journey… and I have thoughts.

As an overview, the DLC adds an 8–12 hour side story campaign to the main title alongside new anomalies, new mechanics and a fully voice-acted narrative. The original mix of cozy and unnerving from Pacific Drive‘s initial release has been replaced with a spookier, more sinister tone as we learn more and more about a fanatical cult operating within The Zone. 

For players who read “Pacific Drive but spookier” and are already sold, then feel free to stop reading here. For everyone else, I can happily report the atmosphere in Whispers in the Woods has been amped up and the visuals continue to look phenomenal. However, there were a few bumps in the road… I was initially taken with the DLC, but as I started to settle into the new, poorly-explained gameplay loop, cracks started to appear.

There are two new main systems to contend with. Instead of collecting energy to form an exit gateway as in the original Pacific Drive, the player now needs to collect a certain number of “artifacts” that will be sacrificed at an altar to open an escape route. These artifacts each have their own quirk that will apply to the player and their car, with the effects ranging from good to ‘get rid of this thing as fast as possible’. I do like the fact that the player can no longer tell where the level exit will appear. Previously the escape could be trivialized by plotting a clear route, now the player needs to adapt on the fly, leading to far tenser rides.

Secondly, holding on to too many artifacts will gradually increase The Whispering Tide. If it maxes out “they” will begin hunting the player across the map, I will not be elaborating further because that’s part of the experience, but thankfully, this aspect can be offset this by equipping the remnant with attuned parts which will help hide the player’s presence from “them”.

In theory these are both fine systems, leading to more varied escapes and encouraging veteran players to update their car. Sadly, these new attuned parts are just glowing versions of existing parts, so I was forced to unlock everything again, minus the joy of discovery and added frustration because they are harder to repair. While different artifacts do have slightly different impact levels, the player almost always has the ability to choose either a positive one or an ignorable negative effect. This leads to the gameplay loop feeling very similar to the original Pacific Drive — simply collect enough circular energy sources to escape through a portal.

This repetition is not helped by the story missions being essentially the same task repeated seven times. Go to a new area and find an audio file, listen to it to unlock a trial with a special gameplay condition, complete the trial to unlock a new area, and repeat. The areas each have their own quirks and the trials often come with substantial restrictions, but I was left wanting when it came to the diversity I had hoped for from an expansion. The new anomalies are interesting but I had encountered the majority within a few hours of play and none caused me to change my approach to the maps, which are still heavily filled with well-known anomalies.

When it comes to the actual narrative, I prefer the story of the main game. However, I do want to acknowledge that the DLC offers strong voice performances to accompany the player throughout their journey. I was a disappointed to see there was less environmental storytelling than the first go-round and that it was almost all contained to audio logs, but the characters are at least interesting. For newer players, the story is completely separate from that of the original Pacific Drive, so players can drop in and out without concerns of spoilers.

I wanted to be able to write this review and profess my love for Whispers In The Woods as a reason to revisit one of my favorite titles of the past few years, but it left me wanting. On paper it’s more Pacific Drive with a Halloween skin, but I wanted more from an expansion. If it had been marketed as a smaller ‘trials’ pack my expectations might have been more in line with the actual experience.

There is clear care put into this expansion and it’s easy to see the vision Ironwood Studios had, it just didn’t land with me. However, I do hope they continue trying to experiment because I would love this studio to create a new experience as much as I love the original Pacific Drive.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

— Adam Sharman

Buy Pacific Drive: Whispers In the Woods — PC — PS — XB

Disclosures: This game is developed by Ironwood Studios and published by Kepler Interactive. It is currently available on PC, PS5 and XBX/S. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 9 hours of play were devoted to the expansion, on top of 32 hours in the main game, and the game was completed. There is currently no multiplayer option.

Parents: The game has an ESRB rating of T due to Fantasy Violence and Language. Pacific Drive can be very unnerving when the player is unaware of the world around them and the expansion has a horror theme including ghastly enemies that can ‘charge’ the player as a mild jump scare, although their threat level is minimal. The visuals and soundtrack of the expansion further play into this horror element but no violence is shown to the player character.

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes alongside a host of accessibility features.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has subtitles for all dialogue, which is the sole way the story is conveyed. No audio is essential for gameplay and the subtitles cannot be tweaked beyond on/off. While some anomalies have audio cues, these are all accompanied by some level of visual cue. It can be helpful to hear certain anomalies without looking, but this has minimal gameplay effect. The car can develop quirks which include the horn being honked as an effect, which may be more difficult to identify for players with hearing difficulty, but this is a rare occurrence and there are ways to identify the quirk without hearing the sound.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls on both keyboard and controller.

The post Pacific Drive: Whispers In The Woods Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Nightmarish imagery and enemies.

LOW A shortage of fantastical fungus powers.

WTF is the Winters motto.

In 2017, Resident Evil 7 reinvigorated a franchise that many thought was past its prime.

A refocusing on survival horror over action, a first-person perspective realizing the initial title’s original intent, a mystery plot mostly unburdened by series lore – much has been said about these things elsewhere, but one aspect I’d like to highlight is its new protagonist, Ethan Winters.

Ethan was an everyman caught up in fantastical circumstances with the simple goal of
rescuing his missing wife. Although mostly a blank slate for the player to imprint
themselves upon, he nonetheless approached events with an understandable incredulity and avoided the usual aloof, cool-as-a-cucumber energy common to leading men. The fact that he often says “WTF…” kind of sums him up.

In the Shadows of Rose campaign – the main course of the Winters’ DLC expansion for
Resident Evil Village – Ethan’s now-teenage daughter continues that legacy as a more
relatable protagonist than the mill of tough supercop-types that have saturated the
series. Although only three hours long, the content is a superb distillation of what made
Village such a treat, further elevated by artistic flourishes only possible through its unreal
setting.

Returning to a third-person perspective, Rose travels through a mindrealm imprinted on
a laboratory sample of the mutamycete (the magical black mold that causes the events of RE7
and Village) as she seeks a way to rid herself of the powers granted to her by thanks to her
unusual lineage.

Even moreso than its predecessor, Shadows flits between several gameplay types. It
starts as the rather familiar mansion exploration, blasting shuffling monsters with only
limited ammunition, before playing with escape room and stealth mechanics.

While each section of the campaign is solid (with the return to the doll house being a particular
highlight) there are some missed opportunities thanks to the half-baked implementation of
Rose’s powers. Players get charges of mold energy that can be used as a means to
open new areas or stun enemies and… that’s about it.

There is a final boss fight where a slew of new abilities are unlocked, all over-the-top and ultimately
some high notes to end the campaign on, but this bombast just demonstrates how much more could’ve been added throughout. However, implementing those wild powers from the finale would’ve required a much different game, however, and Winters’ is really just another visit to the village.

As such, Capcom gets away with remixing familiar locations and re-using assets because this is a dreamscape remembrance of those people and places. Its most interesting and terrifying setpieces are those unconstrained by the real – a display of mutilated Rose copies, murderous giant-sized dolls, and the scariest mannequins I’ve yet come across in the genre. It’s a dash of unexplained and ephemeral Silent Hill in a series that has typically taken painstaking efforts to explain itself through science fiction schlock.

They can’t help themselves, though. Similar to the base game’s campaign, it has a room towards the end filled with notes that explain some of the supernatural within the setting’s own internal logic. It’s weak storytelling that should’ve been revealed in dribs and drabs — but even then, why bother? Embrace the weird, Capcom.

Those explanations do not diminish the strong emotional core of the campaign, however. This DLC is Rose’s coming-of-age and ultimate acceptance of her powers while the mutamycete plays on her insecurities. When all is revealed, the script slows for a brief rest and the finale is as satisfying as it is tragic. No Resident Evil I’ve yet played has ever plucked at my heartstrings so effectively.

In terms of content apart from Rose’s journey, The DLC also includes the option to play the main Village campaign in third person.

There’s certainly an audience for this, capturing the essence of the Resident Evil 2 and 3
remake, but I found it mostly distracting. While that extra situational awareness can help prevent taking
unexpected damage from enemies outside the first-person sightline, this is still very clearly a game designed for its original vision. Object interactions can be janky, and cutscenes will jarringly go to first-person and back to third when gameplay starts up again.

The final piece of the DLC consists of additional characters for Mercenaries, a horde mode where
players fight through levels racking up points for killing enemies. The Winters’ Expansion
adds three new characters — famous boulder-puncher Chris Redfield and two of Village’s
antagonists, Heisenberg and the meme queen Lady Dimitrescu, who play decidedly
differently than the gun-toting protagonists.

Heisenberg wields his big hammer, has Magneto-like powers and can summon a
mechanical monstrosity. However, the big girl is the best addition, adding a “thrill” meter that
unlocks different attacks but must be kept up with kills. Lady Dimitrescu adds laughter to the
slaughter as she shreds enemies with her claws, and it gives the mode an infectiously gleeful energy.

While the Winters’ Expansion offers some neat new toys to play with, it’s the Shadows of Rose campaign that is its triumph. Despite a few blemishes and a short length, it once again proves that Resident Evil still has a lot to give. I just hope we get to see Rose again, perhaps with a few new powers under her belt.
The series’ original characters should all be pushing 50 by now, and she’s just the fresh
face to carry the series forward – out with the old, in with the mold.

— Stephen Cook

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Capcom. It is currently available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, XBO, and XBX. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed.  There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Strong Language. This is a survival-horror action game in which players assume the role of a girl (Rose Winters). From a third-person perspective, players explore environment sand use pistols and shotguns
to shoot and kill fantastical creatures. Some attacks result in decapitation of enemies; some areas depict bloodstains and corpses within the environment.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. (See example above.) The subtitles can be altered and/ or resized. Unfortunately there are no visual cues to help with growls or other monster sounds coming from offscreen. Players who have hearing issues should be ready to take a few hits after being caught by surprise. This game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable when using a controller. Keyboard and mouse bindings are remappable.

The post Resident Evil Village: Winters’ Expansion Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH It’s more Wasteland 3. That’s great!

LOW Most of the new additions and ideas sound interesting but don’t really work out.

WTF There’s no way to stop companions from slaughtering factory workers?

My verdict on Wasteland 3‘s base game was that it’s pretty incredible. It offers a great story set in a bizarre world with lots of memorable characters, and the solidly engaging battle system on top of it made it one of 2020’s best. When I learned about its first DLC, The Battle of Steeltown, it seemed like a great excuse to hop back in to see how inXile have shaped the game since launch.

Coming back to it after all this time, I found that the various bugs and performance issues I previously experienced were all but eliminated. It was a great experience then, and it’s in much better shape technically now. Wasteland 3 remains one hell of a game, and any role-playing fan who hasn’t jumped yet in should get on it, pronto.

The central location of the Steeltown DLC is a factory which produces the vast majority of Colorado’s weapons and technology — or at least it used to, since it’s recently come to a screeching halt in production. This isn’t a good thing in a world infested with bandits and raiders, so the Rangers get an urgent request from the Patriarch of Colorado to go and see what the hell’s going on.

Upon arriving at their destination, the Rangers are greeted with a chaotic scene. The gates of Steeltown are closed, gunfire and alarms can be heard within the walls, and a large group of angry refugees are demanding the release of relatives who’ve been trapped in the factory for weeks, contradicting the company employee telling everyone that their loved ones are just been doing some very extended overtime.

New to The Battle of Steeltown is a class of less-than-lethal weaponry designed to overload the cybernetic augmentations of workers the player will encounter without killing them. Since the factory workers may be getting a teensy bit exploited, it ‘d be bad form to slaughter them all on the spot. These weapons are a little harder to use than simply shooting someone in the skull, so weighing the additional risk of their use is a consideration during the strategic turn-based battles.

There’s a very strange problem with this non-lethal approach, however — early in the campaign, it’s mentioned that the party’s animal companions will rip innocent factory workers limb from limb if the team gets into combat with them nearby. It’s therefore a good idea to dismiss them back to Ranger HQ’s comfy kennel before things kick off. That’s a great option for any pets on team, but the human, robotic and/or synthetic companions are just as indiscriminately murderous as the animals.

As someone who always strives for the optimal ‘nice guy’ outcome, it’s a little dispiriting to have the Rangers aim to use non-lethal weaponry to bust up a riot, only to see the companion toaster launch flaming toast at a factory worker, or the robot chicken ripping their eyes out with his terrifying chrome-plated beak.

This unstoppable team aggro is a hell of an oversight. Encouraging nonlethal approaches, yet having no way to order squadmates to be dismissed or to stand down seems like a ridiculously obvious problem. I was almost sure I was missing something initially, but a cursory online search revealed other players were having the same issue and I’m sure as hell not killing any of them as a workaround.

Something else that’s questionable is the difficulty of the battles here in Steeltown. It’s been a while since I played through Wasteland 3, but this DLC seems a bit… well, brutal.

This new content features scalable difficulty, so the challenge should theoretically adjust to the team’s current strengths. I loaded an old save and came in at level 25, only to be absolutely steamrolled by the opposition despite having no issues with the main story quests. Some of the new battle mechanics are a little overdone for my taste too, such as the tar-thrower’s stacking movement debuff and the various shields that enemies now employ.

It’s also not the lengthiest DLC. Even after retrying some battles numerous times, I’d clocked it all in the region of four or five hours, and I wasn’t hurrying. Given that Wasteland 3‘s base content was so damn generous, Steeltown does feel a little bit inconsequential, rather than a significant undertaking for the Rangers to get stuck into.

The writing still remains excellent despite these issues. After undergoing a rigged medical to see if our Rangers were suitable job applicants clear to pass into Steeltown, we were given the highly important job of tightening any loose nuts that we might come across and given our own wrench. Sweet! Then there’s the toaster full of toasters, a talking toilet seat that can be used for its original purpose, and various zany moments that help spice things up.

So there are a lot of small, amusing moments scattered throughout, but the main quest doesn’t have much nuance to it — the workers are getting screwed over in Steeltown by the people in charge, and it’d be hard to find anyone who’d seriously argue otherwise. As a result, it’s a very one-sided situation as to who the Rangers should be helping out from an ethical standpoint. That said, this doesn’t mean the Rangers have to be particularly ethical when tidying up this mess. It’s just a bit more cut and dried than usual.

The Battle of Steeltown is a well-written piece of additional content for Wasteland 3 that doesn’t quite live up to expectations due to its experimental approach to combat and short running time. It’s a pleasant enough playthrough for a few hours despite the difficulty spikes, but it’s ultimately a compelling enough reason to come back to Colorado.

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by inXile Entertainment. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 0 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Content, Strong Language and Use of Drugs.

Colorblind Modes: There are no global colorblind modes available, but there is an option to apply colorblind settings to icons during battle.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles and the subtitles can be altered and/ or resized

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Wasteland 3: The Battle For Steeltown Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Leave The Lights On

HIGH Turning Assist Mode on and burning through the back half.

LOW Darkness is one of the worst videogame gimmicks, ever.

WTF Alan’s barely in this.

Disclaimer: This review is for Control’s AWE content only. For a full review of the base game, please go here. For a review of Control: The Foundation, go here. Also, be aware that players wanting to start AWE must have first finished the 7th story mission from the main game, titled “The Face of the Enemy“.

After playing Control: AWE, I’m convinced there’s a hidden formula for creating successful add-ons. The longer it’s been since release, the more an expansion must offer — not ‘more’ in terms of content, though, but in concept.

When a level pack or extra challenges drop soon after launch, most players are generally glad to get more as long as they enjoyed the core experience. It’s still fresh in their minds, and they’re probably not feeling done with their purchase yet. Control was my game of the year in 2019, and if $10 would have bought me another five hours after rolling credits, I would have gladly paid and played.

On the other hand, when developers take their time and a long window between content drops occurs, that material has to be good enough and special enough to get players to come back after they’ve moved on.

It’s been a full year since Remedy’s latest hit consoles and I’ve played — literally — dozens of games since then. While I have fond memories of Jesse Faden and her shenanigans in The Oldest House, I want something new if I’m coming back. Unfortunately, AWE fails to offer any surprises or interesting twists, instead delivering what feels like the dullest parts of the campaign slightly remixed.

In AWE, Jesse is led to a new section of The Oldest House which has been acting as a prison to someone (or something) with links to Remedy’s hit from 2010, Alan Wake. As she investigates, a few brief, oblique cutscenes with Wake pop up as she comes across assorted documents, voice recordings, more Hiss to shoot, and so on. It’s par for the Control course, but at this point that’s not necessarily a good thing.

The last DLC, The Foundation, took Jesse to a part of the House that looked visually distinct and she did new things with new powers. In contrast, AWE is largely indistinguishable from the base game. Players can expect the same gray hallways and large rooms populated with the same enemies they’ve been through time and again. The new map even feels cut-and-pasted — for example, the large bridge/turntable feature so memorable the first time it appeared is re-used here, and more than once.

When not shooting mobs, Jesse occasionally uses light to burn away black blobs that block her way (a direct nod to Wake’s use of flashlights) and will spend a significant amount of time fitting Control’s ubiquitous power cubes into slots to activate gates and lights. There’s also also a separate kind of darkness that enervates Jesse, so that’s a genuinely new wrinkle. However, these things don’t add up to much, and the darkness was more irritating than engaging.

Oh, look forward to a handful of miserable boss fights, as well.

The one bright spot is that alongside AWE, Remedy has released a free “Assist Mode” update to Control which gives the player powerful options to tailor gameplay — increase energy gain, reduce damage taken, or just go whole hog and activate true invulnerability and the power to kill any enemy in one shot. Given how dull and annoying AWE is, being able to speed through the worst parts of it was a godsend.

While I greatly enjoyed Control and The Foundation was solid, it feels like Remedy didn’t have any gas left in the tank for AWE. It’s visually boring, it’s irritating to play, and the connections to Alan Wake are laughably thin — the entirety of it could have been summed up in 90-second cinematic trailer. If this content had been available when I was going through Control the first time, I probably wouldn’t have objected. But now, a year later? It’s far too little, far too late.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Remedy and published by 505 Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4 and XBO. This copy of the add-on was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 4 hours of play were devoted to it, and the main questline was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Strong Language and Violence. Control might be rated M, but I didn’t experience anything memorable that some T-rated games like Uncharted don’t get away with. There is violence and language, but none of it is over-the-top. I don’t see any problem with early teenagers playing this with some adult supervision.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes but an option to toggle enemies’ health bars between red or yellow exists.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Control features subtitles in three different sizes for all spoken dialogue in the game. It also features an option to put a shaded box behind the subtitles for better clarity. Control features text-overlay options for signs in the world, but the subtitle size changes do not affect the sign overlay text size. Control is more difficult without sound due to a drastic music change that signals when enemies are on the attack and when they’re asbent. This music change has no visual cue. Also, Control includes three options for subtitle sizes, the largest is shown below.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls on the PS4 version. Y and X-Axes and stick sensitivity can be changed. A picture of the PS4’s controller setup is below.

The post Control: AWE Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The fight versus Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Sindel’s hot mom energy.

LOW The pricing structure.

WTF Robocop’s appearance in story mode.

This review covers only Aftermath, the DLC add-on to Mortal Kombat 11. For an in-depth look at MK11 itself, please see the full review here.

It seems crazy that Aftermath, the latest add-on to Mortal Kombat 11 is the series’ first story-based expansion. After all, story is one of the things MK is known for since blowing the doors off its singleplayer campaign in MK9 and spinning one wild yarn after another since then. But here we are, and even in their first attempt at this sort of content, NetherRealm Studios nails it.

For me, the biggest draw to Aftermath was continuing the saga of the MK cast I’ve grown to love over the last few years. The ninjas have been mostly cool since ‘92, but the rest have ranged from ‘okay, I guess?‘ to ‘cringeworthy spandex cosplay fail’ until recently, but those days are long gone. The scriptwriters and character designers have been on-effing-point for three games in a row, and MK has never been better. Getting more of their adventures, betrayals and dramatic pauses? Yes, please.

I won’t spoil anything, but Aftermath’s events take place immediately after the ending of MK11 and continues right past where players thought it ended. A lot of time-traveling, dimension-hopping hijinks ensue, and along the way players are treated to three new additions to the roster — Fujin, Sheeva, and sci-fi legend Robocop, featuring voicework by the actor who portrayed him in film, Peter Weller. Robocop isn’t someone I use much, but Fujin’s wind-based powers are great and dropping down on someone’s head as Sheeva never gets old. Overall, these are welcome additions.

The campaign content consists of five chapters with a total of 27 fights that rotate through different characters. (33 fights if players go back and complete the other side of matches where they must choose between two kombatants.) I loved what I got, but I wish it lasted a bit longer. Between battles are high-quality cutscenes that must have cost a fortune to produce — they look excellent and do a great job selling the action, whether it’s choreographed martial arts or large-scale battlefields.

As for the quality of play, there’s not much to say — it’s the same hyper-polished top-notch brawling that satisfied in MK11’s base game. The controls are tight, the ability to customize characters is still ace, and the variety on offer, both in the cast and in play modes, is strong. This stuff is at the top of its class.

Alongside Aftermath, players can get a separate update — no purchase necessary — that brings two new stages (Klassic Dead Pool and Soul Chamber), stage fatalities and friendships — they’re a variety of finishing moves that offer the equivalent of warm hugs instead of the usual screaming decapitations and sharp objects rammed into eye sockets. Seeing Kano barbecuing or Jax playing the sax is priceless.

Aftermath comes in a couple of flavors — newcomers can get an all-in-one pack that includes the base game, Aftermath and its three new characters, and six others that were released earlier including Shang Tsung, Nightwolf, Sindel, The Terminator, Joker, Spawn (ugh) and a whole passel of skins. Those who already own MK11 can get just the new stuff. It feels like the marketing department missed a trick here, though. The ‘everything’ bundle ($60) is a hell of a deal, but but the Aftermath-only pack ($40) feels too steep for those who’ve already shelled out for the game.

Mortal Kombat 11 was already fantastic, and Aftermath gave me the perfect excuse to revisit it. It looks great, it plays great, and for players (like me) who would rather not get beaten to a pulp by the savants online, dipping in for some drama and a few offline matches is hard to beat. The price is an eyebrow-raiser for players that have already put money in, but for anyone who enjoyed MK11 and wants more, this is a no-brainer.

Disclosures: This game is developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by WB Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4, XBO and Switch. This copy of the content was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the game between the story mode and offline modes, and the story mode was completed.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Strong Language. The official ESRB description is as follows: This is a fighting game in which players engage in one-on-one battles against characters from the Mortal Kombat universe. Players punch, kick, throw, and use special attacks (e.g., guns; blasts of fire, ice, or lightning; bladed weapons) to drain opponents’ life meters. Battles are highlighted by screams of pain, realistic gunfire, and exaggerated impact sounds; large blood-splatter effects occur frequently. Some attacks are depicted with slow-motion x-ray views of characters’ bones shattering. Each character can perform various finishing moves (Fatalities, Brutalities) after an opponent is defeated; these over-the-top moves can result in characters being dismembered, decapitated, and mutilated. Instances of intense violence include a character’s face and skull torn off; a character ripped in half leaving entrails exposed; a character cut into pieces by a hat blade; a character’s spine and head ripped from its body. The words “f**k,” “sh*t,” and “a*shole” appear in the dialogue.

Colorblind Modes: yes, there are three colorblind modes available in the options – tritanopia, protanopia and deuteranopia.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: While there are sound cues that accompany certain moves, the game runs at such speed that I never found it helpful to listen for the cues and would instead focus on the visual information. I also played it with the sound muted and had no issues. All dialogue is subtitled and the text size is not adjustable. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The addition of NPCs, many quality of life upgrades.

LOW Badly designed story missions.

WTF Why does this game not have a ping feature?

This review covers only the Fallout 76: Wastelanders add-on content. For more information on the base game, Fallout 76, please see Mike Suskie’s full review.

Wastelanders is the highly anticipated update to Bethesda’s MMO Fallout 76. This update aims to bring life to the wasteland — a place that’s been criticized by players for feeling too empty. The solution? Add human NPCs and a new main quest to replace the never-ending scavenger hunt that marred the original Fallout 76. Wastelanders provides a mix of new areas to explore, such as new buildings and camps, and revitalizes existing parts of the world by including story beats that encourage the player to visit far reaches of the map. What used to be abandoned facilities and camps are now filled with fellow survivors.

While the Wastelanders update changes the story and the way players interact with the world, the core features of Fallout 76 remain the same. The combat still feels like Fallout, walking across the wasteland still feels the same as it did at launch (albeit with less crashes), and the RPG elements are untouched.

At its essence, the Wastelanders update is great. The inclusion of NPCs does a solid job of making Appalachia come alive and the new storyline is so much more compelling than the original. Sadly, Wastelanders is only an update, so issues with the source material still diminish the overall experience.

Take one of the first opening missions for example. After finding the NPCs that highlight the Wastelanders update, I’m told about two warring factions: The Settlers and the Raiders. The obvious progression of the story leads me to learn more about these factions and ultimately decide who I will join. As I’m following the mission to learn more about this bustling world, my progress grinds to a halt as I’m tasked with running multiple fetch quests for a robot named Rose.

These missions are incredibly tedious, requiring me to leave her outpost, walk five minutes, kill some enemies, and return, which then includes another five minutes of loading screens. The worst part is that they take me away from the heart of the Wastelanders update — human NPCs.

Times like this are where Wastelanders fails. It withholds great interactions with human NPCs for too long by forcing players to trudge through a significant chunk of dull content in order to get to the highlights like building reputation with the factions and ultimately choosing one to side with, a feature that the Fallout series is well known for.

That said, there’s still a lot of enjoyment to be had in Fallout 76: Wastelanders, and the addition of NPCs has done wonders to the experience beyond what I expected. These aren’t simply skin-covered robots that roam the wasteland, these are real-feeling human NPCs that interact with each other, play instruments with one another, and make comments about the player’s armor and weaponry.

I was at a picnic table taking a load off during my first few hours of play when I saw the first bit of interaction between NPCs in Wastelanders. A farmhand named Jide walked over to a security bot and did some routine checkups on her. He narrated his actions, noting that a part needed to be repaired soon, and then went back to his work. This was the moment that I realized Bethesda wanted to bring life to the Wasteland, not just another way to deliver fetch quests.

The quality-of-life upgrades are superb as well. Players who haven’t returned to Fallout 76 in some time will be happy to hear that quests are much easier to track, with the ability to track specific quest locations while turning other off. Players can also find specific quest locations from the Pip-boy, which is incredibly helpful in a map as big as Appalachia.

Fallout 76: Wastelanders is a compelling reason for gamers to return to Appalachia and explore the wasteland, but with that said, I did play the majority of Wastelanders with friends. While I completed most of the story missions solo, I still had a team in-game that I frequently chatted with, which made the mundane bits of Fallout 76, such as walking long distances to the next objective or waiting through long load times, much more bearable.

Playing solo can still be entertaining, but the moments of loneliness hang over the player like a cloud while they’re traveling from point A to point B. In the end, it comes down to personal preference — some will enjoy the solemn journeys found in Appalachia, while others will only play when friends are online, but even without them, the Wastelanders update is a step in the right direction.

— Seth Morris

***

Disclosures: This game is developed by Bethesda and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is currently available on Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. This copy of the game was obtained via Paid download via PlayStation Store and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 16 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. 16 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol The official ESRB description reads as follows: This is an open-world role-playing game in which players must survive/thrive in a post-apocalyptic world. From a first- or third-person perspective, players search for supplies/food while battling other survivors and mutant creatures. Players use machetes, machine guns, rocket launchers, and grenades to kill ghoul-like creatures and other enemies in frenetic combat. Some weapons allow players to blow ghouls apart, resulting in flying limbs and chunks of flesh; wounded characters can also be executed with gunshots to the head, resulting in decapitation. The game includes frequent references to drugs called Chems, which are sometimes used as plot points for characters; Chems can be found, manufactured, and used to enhance performance/skills of characters, though there is no actual depiction of use. A handful of story missions require players’ character to acquire ingredients to make alcoholic beverages; one alcoholic drink (Nukashine) can discolor and/or cause the screen to blur after being consumed. The words “f**k” and “sh*t” appear in the dialogue.

Colorblind Modes: (There are no colorblind modes) available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles in Fallout 76. The only audio cues that do not have a visual component are the noises that enemies make. These noises will occasionally show up through subtitles, but they are not reliable. 

Remappable Controls: The following functions are remappable — Attack, Aim/Block, Bash/Power Attack/Grenade, Activate, Ready/Reload, Map, Pip-Boy, Toggle POV/Workshop, Jump, Sprint, VATS, Sneak.

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HIGH It’s more Control!

LOW The “Swift Platform” mission needs work.

WTF Something went horribly wrong with the lipsyncing.

The Foundation is the first expansion for Remedy’s excellent 2019 title (and my personal game of the year) Control. For further information on the base game, please see this review. This article will only address The Foundation.

First things first — players who want to jump into the new content will need to finish the campaign first. Those who haven’t rolled credits on the story won’t be able to begin this expansion.

In this add-on, there’s trouble in the Oldest House. Protagonist Jesse Faden must go down to its lowest level — the foundation — and suss out what’s wrong down there. I won’t spoil any narrative elements, but players might recall that head of operations Helen Marshall went missing during the original campaign and was notably absent for the remainder of the game. The Foundation reveals what became of her and wraps her storyline up.

Looking at what The Foundation adds, players will get an all-new environment made up of a series of caves and the kind of structures that are typical in Control — a lot of cold stone monoliths, time/space abstractions and a bunch of scattered paperwork and audiotapes. It feels like a natural expansion of the environment, and I was right at home.

There are (as far as I know, anyway) four missions in the content. One is the main story concerning Marshall, and the three others are optional sidequests. They’re all par for the course, but it seems safe to assume that the standout was supposed to be “Jesse Faden Starring in Swift Platform”. Unfortunately, the cool factor is seriously diminished because it’s too difficult, too long and the nearest checkpoint is too far away.

Mechanically, players can look forward to a new melee-type enemy who’s more trouble than one might expect, a “Shield Rush” ability which is incredibly useful for blocking damage and pushing enemies off of ledges, and two new powers — “Create” and “Fracture”.

While traversing the foundation’s caves and stone-rich environments, Jesse can use Create to cause rocky outcroppings to sprout out from walls and floors. These can serve as platforms or as damage-dealing spikes. Fracture gives Jesse’s gun the power to shatter pre-existing stone pillars and growths that block her way. They’re well-woven into the foundation area and give the missions a bit of a metroidvania feeling, but they can only be used in predetermined spots set by the devs. Without the ability to manipulate stone at-will, these abilities will likely be ineffective anywhere else in the Oldest House.

Overall, The Foundation is a satisfying package that delivers more of what players got from the original campaign, and this is a good thing. The combat scenarios are tense, the locales are interesting, and it’s between four to six hours of new content for those looking to spend more time with Jesse Faden. It might not advance the storyline much and it doesn’t do anything radically different, but there’s no question that those who enjoyed Control should jump in and see what’s happening in the basement.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Remedy and published by 505 Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4 and XBO. This copy of the add-on was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 4 hours of play were devoted to it, and the main questline was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Strong Language and Violence. Control might be rated M, but I didn’t experience anything memorable that some T-rated games like Uncharted don’t get away with. There is violence and language, but none of it is over-the-top. I don’t see any problem with early teenagers playing this with some adult supervision.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes but an option to toggle enemies’ health bars between red or yellow exists.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Control features subtitles in three different sizes for all spoken dialogue in the game. It also features an option to put a shaded box behind the subtitles for better clarity. Control features text-overlay options for signs in the world, but the subtitle size changes do not affect the sign overlay text size. Control is more difficult without sound due to a drastic music change that signals when enemies are on the attack and when they’re asbent. This music change has no visual cue. Also, Control includes three options for subtitle sizes, the largest is shown below.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls on the PS4 version. Y and X-Axes and stick sensitivity can be changed. A picture of the PS4’s controller setup is below.

The post Control: The Foundation Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH “Taking heart.”

LOW The lack of options and paucity of general anxiety.

WTF Selling what was previously a demo to people who already own the full game.

Back in 2016 when development of Pathologic 2 was still underway, developer Ice-Pick Lodge offered eager fans a glimpse of their progress in The Marble Nest. It was a ‘vertical slice’ demo that offered an introduction to the mechanics and themes through a short, standalone story featuring a separate protagonist and only a small portion of the town to explore. The full title finally released earlier this year to a rave review from me, and now Ice-Pick Lodge has elected to update The Marble Nest with the finalized engine and UI and release it as a downloadable add-on.

It’s a bit of an odd choice. I never played the original build, but I can see how it would be effective as a microcosm of Pathologic 2’s surface-level qualities without the slow-building anxiety of the final adventure. As a post-script likely only experienced by those who have braved the full campaign and come out wanting more, it feels mellow and anticlimactic in comparison.

The Marble Nest takes place over the course of a single day and centers on a doctor named Daniil Dankovsky, a key character from the main game who will (supposedly) be getting his own full campaign at some point in the future, as he did in the original Pathologic. The plague has already taken its toll, but it’s supposedly been contained in the eastern portion of the town, and the surviving residents are celebrating a happy ending. Dankovsky isn’t so convinced that the battle has been won yet.

The DLC begins just as the main game did — at the end, with the protagonist having failed. The plague has moved into the western district and a physical manifestation of death arrives at the doctor’s quarters, asking if he’s ready to submit. Dankovsky requests another try, which is a sly reference to the fact that Pathologic 2 openly invites players to load earlier saves if they reach a problem that they can’t solve. He gets his wish and wakes up at dawn with the residents of the Stone Yard still safe and healthy. From there, it’s a mad rush to prevent impending tragedy.

Pathologic 2 was so famously unforgiving that the developers later patched in difficulty sliders for the survival elements. In contrast, since The Marble Nest only spans a single day, much of the pressure just isn’t there. As long as players find a few bites of food and take regular sips of water, they’ll make it through without much trouble, and there’s no stress about having to prepare for whatever the next day will bring. As a demo, The Marble Nest’s lax difficulty makes sense. As an add-on, it feels soft, and even a little dull.

That also goes for the limited number of options players have in approaching various problems. There are no weapons that I could discern, no trading with NPCs except in scripted circumstances, and most of the buildings are locked off. In a nearby pharmacy, there’s a panacea for the illness, but the building is guarded and the soldier outside confiscates any items that players attempt to sneak out. In the main campaign, I could just kill the guy and deal with the consequences. In The Marble Nest, the cure is permanently, frustratingly out of reach.

While Pathologic 2 is a marvelous immersive sim, it also told one of my favorite stories in the history of the medium, and The Marble Nest at least feels consistent on that front. The writing is as sharp and darkly humorous as ever, and while I’m disappointed in how non-interactive it all feels, it at least uses that to reinforce one of the central themes — the inevitability of death. I mentioned in my Pathologic 2 review that simply giving up felt like a canonical conclusion in and of itself, and in this DLC that’s literally the case, since one of the “endings” is to submit to death in the opening minutes.

Again, though, that’s a lesson we’ve spent a couple dozen hours learning by the time we play this DLC. As an introduction to the harsh realities of Pathologic 2’s world and rules, The Marble Nest is succinct and to-the-point. As a footnote, it’s underwhelming.

Given that The Marble Nest tells a standalone story and features some isolated gems in its script, I totally respect Ice-Pick Lodge’s decision to preserve it. That said, I maintain that it would be best experienced as a demo and as a self-contained preface, as it was originally intended. Selling it exclusively to people who already own and have likely finished Pathologic 2 feels counterproductive. While I didn’t dislike my time with The Marble Nest, it just made me hungrier for the next full campaign that the developers have been promising.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Ice-Pick Lodge and published by tinyBuild.It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately three hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: As of press time, this game has not been rated by the ESRB. The base game is definitely not for children, and even within the more limited scope of this DLC, I encountered some pretty gruesome violence.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Audio cues already played a significant role in the base game, and The Marble Nest adds a one-off sequence in which directional sound is explicitly used to avoid becoming infected by the plague. The game remains inaccessible.

Remappable Controls: All of the controls are remappable save for the run, attack, and block functions (bound to left shift, left mouse and right mouse, respectively).

The post Pathologic 2: The Marble Nest Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Monster Hunter World’s first (and supposedly only) major expansion, Iceborne, is set to release on Friday, September 6. Given that the base game remains Capcom’s best-selling release to date — having finally connected with a mainstream audience in the west — I imagine that a lot of people are itching to jump back in. But, based on what I’ve played, you may want to hold off and consider whether or not you’re prepared.

Since downloading Iceborne last week, I’ve put about 30 hours into MHW, but very little of that time has been spent exploring the new content. Instead, I’ve been whipping myself back into shape after hitting a brick wall in Iceborne’s very first mission. It’s only now, having cleared out most of my remaining High Rank missions and fully upgrading my armor, that I’m steadily making progress in the expansion.

Iceborne is explicitly postgame content, taking place after the events of the main campaign. Since I’d finished the story and was well past the required hunter rank (16), I figured I was good to go. Admittedly, since I hadn’t touched MHW in a year and a half, there was a brief period in which I had to shake off the rust and re-familiarize myself with the many systems and my insect glaive.

However, even once I was back in, I was simply taking too much damage and dealing too little in return. After barely squeaking by on my first big target, I subsequently spent two whole hours on my next hunt against an enormous moose-like creature called the Banbaro without seeing so much as a limping animation to signal that I was approaching the end. That’s when I finally accepted that I was woefully under-equipped for Iceborne‘s difficulty and retreated to the grind.

For many Monster Hunter fans, the game doesn’t end when the credits roll. Several of the staffers on this very website have been known to dump hundreds of hours into each new release, seeking greater and greater challenges well after the story has concluded. Iceborne is clearly targeted at those people, since the added content can only be accessed through the expansion’s new difficulty level, Master Rank. While that’ll appeal to hardcore types, it may come as a shock to those like me who only completed the campaign or, even worse, couldn’t even commit to that.

None of this is a statement on Iceborne’s quality. While nothing in this expansion seems to fundamentally change how the game is played, it delivers on its promise of new locations and new monsters. It’s more MHW, and now that I’m in a position where the new missions aren’t a struggle, I’m falling in love with it all over again. But the gateway to entry is going to differ for everyone based on how much time they’ve already invested.

When I downloaded Iceborne, I was at HR30 and my game clock was hovering around 70 hours. If those sound like baby numbers, then this expansion is absolutely for you. Given what I know about the Monster Hunter community, I have little doubt that Iceborne will be received well. For more casual players, know that the new content may be fenced off by a higher toll than just the $40 price tag.

I’ll be doing a full review eventually, but in my view, a warning to prospective buyers was warranted.

The post A Word Of Caution On Monster Hunter World: Iceborne appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The tweaks revitalize the campaign. Finishing several missions with a 100% hit rate.

LOW Getting all of the DLC properly activated is counter-intuitive. Performance issues.

WTF Seriously, don’t play Iron Man mode.

When I played XCOM 2’s original, vanilla version from 2016, I felt much the same way that Darren did in his review. Despite being a huge fan of tactics titles and of the previous XCOM games specifically, it just didn’t grab me — it didn’t seem better or different than what had come before, and worse, it felt repetitive and tired. I was disappointed, bailed out, and put it out of my mind until I heard some people singing the praises of the War of the Chosen expansion.

What a difference an extra 18 months of development makes! While the core experience shared between XCOM 2 and XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is essentially the same, the details, tweaks and additions make a world of difference.

The biggest thing, obviously, are the Chosen themselves — three super-powered alien foes who pop up at the worst possible moments to cause trouble for the player and their crew. Anytime they appear, a successful mission running smoothly can turn into panic after a single turn. Not only are they a dangerous wildcard, the devs did a great job of making them villains that got under my skin. They sneered, they quipped, and they were a colossal pain in the ass — and they were great. After all, there’s not much excitement to a story that doesn’t have a noteworthy enemy, and WotC has three. Killing them felt marvelous after being at their mercy for hours and hours.

On the other side of things, WotC also offers a set of ‘heroes’ — new classes that are capable of incredible feats on the battlefield. The Skirmishers are alien hybrid troops who’ve broken away from the overlords controlling earth, the Reapers are a sniper class who can remain hidden on the battlefield and sneak into anything, and the Templars are a psychic melee class capable of ripping enemies apart with energy blades and parrying any attack. Each one of these is an ace in the hole and they saved the asses of their fellow troops time and time again.

Other aspects of the expansion are equally well-done, especially the expanded mission variety offering several new map and objective types that kept the gameplay fresh — sometimes I’d be setting up an ambush with the enemy completely unaware, sometimes we’d be rushing headlong towards a goal while a timer was ticking away, sometimes it was a smash and grab, a straight-up assault, a rescue, or something else entirely. Each new challenge made me use my troops in different ways under different kinds of pressure, and the quality of the tactics easily sustained my interest from the first mission to the last.

Honestly, the attention to detail in WotC is outstanding. Characters can develop bonds with each other over the course of several missions, and this camaraderie awards them special abilities like taking extra turns, or being granted buffs. After a battle, the player can create their own anti-alien propaganda posters that pop up in the game’s environments, and I spent far too much time creating each one. There are tons and tons of tech to research and develop, which means that new elements are constantly being added to the mix over the whole course of the campaign — a powered exosuit that can create its own cover or a guided smart bomb that can go around corners and straight into a group of alien berserkers? Yes, please!

While the game doesn’t run optimally (some framerate chugging and stutters are quite prevalent, especially in areas with a lot of special effects) the upgraded, enhanced formula that XCOM 2: War of the Chosen offers is absolutely superb. I was fully engaged in this rebellion against humanity’s extraterrestrial overlords, and I’d have no hesitation recommending it to anyone in search of a top-tier tactics experience. And for those, like me, who bounced off of the original XCOM 2? It’s absolutely worth coming back. Rating: 9 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Firaxis and published by 2K Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4 and XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 65 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood, Use of Tobacco, and Violence. The official ESRB description reads as follows: This is a strategy game in which players attempt to save Earth from an alien invasion. From a ¾-top-down perspective, players manage resources, engage in combat missions, rescue characters, and terrorize alien installations. Players use rifles, machine guns, pistols, and grenades to kill enemies (e.g., human-, insect-, beast-like characters) in turn-based combat. Attack moves occur in brief cutscenes that depict characters getting shot or wounded/killed by explosions. Splashes and pools of yellow and red blood sometimes appear when characters are injured or killed. During the course of the game, players can customize soldiers with accessories, including lit cigarettes and cigars.

Colorblind Modes: There (are/are no) colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: It’s a turn-based game, so no audio cues are necessary. All dialogue is subtitled. The text is not resizable. Additionally, there are tons of on-screen indicators for nearly everything including alien sounds and the status of troops. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable and there is no control diagram. Although the game is complex, players will use the left stick to select objects or move a cursor, face buttons to confirm or cancel, and occasionally a shoulder button to change between menus.

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