IGN Game Reviews – Spoken Edition

Close to the Sun is an enthralling alternate-history thriller that explores the implications of a reality in which all of Nikola Tesla’s ambitious, wild, and often deranged ideas came to life. Some pacing problems and repetitive trial and error segments can make it a bit inconsistent at times, but it still does a wonderful job of letting you get lost in its captivating corridors.

On a fundamental level, Mortal Kombat 11’s Switch port is totally fine. It runs at a relatively consistent 60 frames per second, both in docked and handheld modes; (almost) every mode present in the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC versions are accounted for; and even though a ton of sacrifices were made on the visual side to make it run on Nintendo’s substantially less powerful hardware, few if any of them affect the actual fighting gameplay.

Tackling the tumultuous years of the Roman Republic’s rise to power in a grand strategy game is no easy task, but Imperator: Rome proves Paradox is definitely up to it. This is a game built on columns of interesting internal politics, a fun and involved warfare system, and an enormous and detailed map stretching from Ireland to India with strategic elements that make previous Paradox games look downright archaic.

Responsive third-person shooting, fun four-player co-op, and the promise of attaining roguelike godhood with distinctly flavorful items make it dangerously easy to play “just one more game” of Risk of Rain 2. There’s a lot to do even now in early access, like chase down game-changing unlocks and Easter eggs across the continuity of multiple runs, even if there are a few rough edges like online stability.

When it was first introduced a staggering 27 years ago, Mortal Kombat always had that reputation of being “That fighting game where you rip people’s heads off.” Known more for its gore and violence than its gameplay. Things have changed since then with MK9 and MKX bringing the quality of gameplay up to meet the quality of violence.

Despite being full of cards, SteamWorld Quest doesn’t feel like a card game. As the first RPG in the SteamWorld series (the excellent SteamWorld Dig 2 being the previous entry), it bears far more resemblance to a game like Final Fantasy than Hearthstone or Gwent. Instead of letting its deck-building mechanics take over entirely, they instead give SteamWorld Quest one of the most flexible and fun turn-based RPG combat systems I’ve played with in a long time.

Days Gone kicks off relatively simply: you play as a biker riding through an open-world zombie post-apocalypse, seeking answers around his dead wife and smashing enemy faces in with crunchy, weighty melee weapons. Sometimes, there are spectacular hordes of them. So far, so straightforward. Yet through its 60-odd-hour ride, Days Gone loses its focus with repetitive missions, a meandering and thematically unsatisfying storyline, and an excess of bugs and busywork.

Some of my favorite gaming moments stem from co-op sessions with friends, and the chaos that can ensue when all your careful plans start to go awry. World War Z is a competent but basic shooter that seems designed to foster those sorts of memorable moments, and that is surely its greatest strength. It’s a good venue for a group of four friends to get together, topple massive zombie hordes, maybe save a few survivors here and there, and laugh about it when the results roll in.

If you listed out everything that Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series is best known for, you’d probably include things like an open world, freeform character development, hundreds of NPCs with interesting backstories, and the freedom to go anywhere and do anything at any time. The Elder Scrolls: Blades unfortunately has none of those things. It’s a decent mobile RPG, but not a very good Elder Scrolls game, and it’s loaded with obtrusive microtransactions.

Taking more than a few cues from Hotline Miami, Katana Zero is a blisteringly fast slash-em-up with action that’s an absolute adrenaline rush. Which is appropriate because it’s largely about a neo-noir-inspired samurai who sticks a bunch of needles in his body. It wears its inspirations on the sleeves of its kimono, but Katana Zero refines the tried and true one-hit-kill formula in a manner that makes it feels fresh, exciting, and innovative in surprising ways.

If you’ve played your fair share of roguelikes and turn-based tactics games, Pathway presents as a familiar and extremely appealing package. Most obviously, it is a hybrid of XCOM-style combat and board game-style movement punctuated with text-adventure-style scenarios, a la FTL. But upon closer inspection, you’ll also find shades of Into the Breach, Diablo, and Dead Cells.

If there’s one thing that’s become readily apparent with DLC guest fighters appearing in the Super Smash Bros. series, it’s the unreal amount of care and detail put into making them feel right at home in Nintendo’s fighting game. Persona 5’s Joker is no exception. The first of the five planned Super Smash Bros.

Once I got over how ugly my budding villages were going to look if I wanted them to be efficient and profitable, Anno 1800 sunk its teeth into me. The hours flew by as I ignored its many automated suggestions that I should step away from the computer for a break. This seventh iteration of the long-running village-management series goes back to its origins, trading in the futuristic setting of the last two entries for the more traditional sails, Schnapps, and sugar cane.

While it’s since been followed by a string of sequels, crossovers, and spin-offs, the original Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy remains the most mechanically straightforward and narratively cohesive collection of games in the visual novel series to date.

It’s easy to scoff at the Labo VR Kit’s simple cardboard headset and collection of ridiculous add-ons as little more than Google’s Cardboard with Nintendo branding, but this kit is a surprisingly solid and in-depth introduction to the world of VR.