IGN Game Reviews – Spoken Edition

Professional basketball has a sense of style that is unique to the world of sports. The glowing arenas, fashionable apparel and high speed of the game are all unmatched. On the court, it’s not just about the win or the loss, it’s about the way you look doing it. NBA 2K19 builds upon its strong gameplay, fantastic presentation, and wide array of game modes to embody this attitude.

The Messenger has a lot going for it. It’s a 2D action platformer with a gorgeous aesthetic that seamlessly goes from 8 to 16-bit, it has a hilarious sense of humor, clever dialogue, and one of the absolute best retro-themed “chiptune” soundtracks out there. There was even a period of time while playing The Messenger, once I unlocked its full suite of core abilities, when I felt this might be one of the best games I’ve played all year.

At its core, Insomniac Games’ new adventure strives to make you feel like Spider-Man. And, thankfully, Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4 succeeds at nearly every swing across Manhattan’s rooftops. I was left delighted at nearly every step of its 15-hour adventure thanks to a surprisingly deep tale that mines the plights of both Spider-Man and Peter Parker to great emotional success.

I didn’t expect to like NBA Live 19 as much as I did. It’s not without its flaws, that’s for sure, but the actual basketball that takes place on its court feels and looks great. It even has some inventive modes, such as a surprisingly entertaining tower-defense style court battle, alongside the money-hungry Ultimate Team mode that’s become a staple of every EA Sports game.

It wouldn’t be a big-budget shooter released in 2018 without a zombie-themed expansion, and Far Cry 5’s latest DLC, called Dead Living Zombies, dutifully indulges that trend. With the same goofy humor we saw in the previous Mars-themed DLC, this one takes us to a fun nightmarish version of the Montana countryside that’s crawling with undead fodder.

It could have been a beautiful combination. Like butter on popcorn, pouring Castlevania: Symphony of the Night-inspired pixel art over the demanding gameplay of a "Soulslike" feels like a combination that should lead fans of both to fall in love. Unfortunately, Death's Gambit's performance fails to fully realize its buttery premise.

Dragon Quest XI is a distilled, energetic, mathematically elegant epic that takes what I love most about traditional dungeon crawlers and masterfully iterates on the formula. On the surface, Dragon Quest XI seems to be a simple return to the single-player RPG format, after deviating into MMO territory for Dragon Quest X. But that simplicity is a purposefully-crafted facade that melts away after a little time in the immense, complex world. Dragon Quest isn’t simple... it’s pure.

Over the past few years, Codemasters has quietly shaped its F1 franchise into one of the most superb sports series on the market. Today’s F1 games fuse a deep and rewarding racing experience with the same kind of supplemental reverence to a real-life sport that you get from the likes of FIFA, NBA 2K, or any other licensed bat-or-ball sweatfest. F1 2018 is easily the studio’s best effort yet, despite its increasingly stale look.

Monster Hunter Generations arrived in 2016 on Nintendo 3DS, compiling memorable monsters and areas from the series into one, mammoth package. Here’s what we thought at the time: “Monster Hunter Generations hits the core tenets of what makes this series great. Great gear drives the lust for the hunt even on the small scale, but the big, spectacular fights ultimately matter the most.

PES 2019 makes an interesting distinction. It’s not a game about football so much as it is a game about the guys playing football. And exactly how they play it - their behaviours, tendencies, and individual techniques - makes for a livelier game. No longer are you a massive deity in the sky moving generic pieces around a pitch, nor should you think of your team as a collection of stats. Here, players take on a life of their own. The biggest development is a feature called Magic Moments.

This year I’ve become an android, an exiled boy king, a vampire, a headless warrior, an anthropomorphic toadstool, the Grim Reaper, an adorable yarn creature, a pirate, an ex-yakuza, a monster hunter and, of course, the God of War. Such are the wonders of video games. And now, thanks to Donut County, I can add “ever-expanding sink-hole” to that list. Yes, in Donut County you literally control a hole in the ground.

Constructing a miniature cardboard piano that plays a melodic range of cat meows and old man moans is a long but ultimately enjoyable undertaking. Most of the five cardboard toys in the Nintendo Labo Variety Kit result in this same feeling. The process of following Labo’s step-by-step instructions, which can descend into tedium at times, is saved by the final product: wonderfully weird playthings and the option of more creative tinkering.

Have you ever wondered what the inside of a marble looks like? Well, piloting a craft through InnerSpace’s universe made me feel like I was flying inside one — then another, and another — with a handful of different gorgeous worlds waiting to be explored. But actually sailing through these dream-like skies never reached the heights I wanted it to because of annoying controls and obtuse objectives. In fact, InnerSpace has a rough takeoff with a boring and bland tutorial.

I’ve been up until 5 a.m. for three nights in a row, trapped in a loop of fishing for eels, exploring the forest, and feeding my (hopefully) harmless dragon heaps of food in an effort to turn him blue. This is all, ostensibly, in the interest of running a café and saving my mother. The details are hazy. But even when the controls get in the way and the repetition sets in, I’m still enjoying my time as a lost boy.

After four years and seven free expansions, Path of Exile is still like the free-to-play action-RPG version of a owning a vintage sports car. From the unforgiving combat to the piles and piles of randomly generated loot to the encouraged repetition, there is plenty to admire for those of us who remember the Diablo 2 era fondly. But in light of how far the genre has come, playing more than 85 hours of Path of Exile for this review also reminded me how high-maintenance and cumbersome it can be.