IGN Game Reviews – Spoken Edition

The core Forza Motorsport 7 experience is one that hasn’t deviated much from the time-tested loop established by racing genre kingpin Gran Turismo back in 1997, but developer Turn 10 has crafted a new benchmark with this year’s edition. On PC there’s nothing that can match the scale of its garage, and it’s the definitive car collectathon on any console.

What happened, Telltale? After a promising Season 2 premiere – which came on the back of a thoroughly entertaining first season that refreshingly flipped a number of Batman character conventions on their heads – the second episode of The Enemy Within falls flat. An uneventful storyline, surprisingly poor voice acting, and an ending that has no immediate payoff besides teasing a hopefully better episode 3 have stalled out what was a promising Batman adventure.

Booting up Donkey Kong Country on the Super NES Classic instantly threw me back to playing the platformer for the first time, and I found myself, though I knew where every hidden “KONG” letter was, having just as much fun as I did years ago. That was true of not just Donkey Kong Country in my time with the Super NES Classic, but of the vast majority of the system’s 21 games from the ‘90s.

Despite getting eight under par on one of the world's hardest courses, I suck at golf. At least, that's what the comedically mean NPCs in Golf Story keep telling me. This adorable RPG disguised as a golf game continually surprised me with the odd situations I was thrown into, whether it was fighting skeletons, stealing from snow bandits, and, every once in awhile, actually playing golf. Golf Story tells an odd but enjoyable story full of clever and funny writing.

You know how a joke can start funny, get annoying, then become funny again through sheer attrition? That’s Cuphead’s approach to enjoyment. With a beautiful, caustic, near-unceasing stream of boss battles, Studio MDHR’s debut made me scream with joy and horror by turn, but I settled on joy by the end. The most obvious point to begin with is that Cuphead looks astonishing.

If it appears as though Apple is no longer trying to surprise and excite us with its annual iPhone revisions… it’s because it’s not. Now that the main iPhone has become the standard smartphone rather than a luxury item, Apple has reserved its real ambition for the upcoming iPhone X and its edge-to-edge screen. That leaves the iPhone 8 as an incremental upgrade over the iPhone 7, which was itself an incremental upgrade over the iPhone 6s, and the 6 before that.

I was mesmerized by the pastel polygons of Star Fox 2. While abstract ships swirled in a stop-motion dance in front of me, I kept thinking this was one of the most beautiful games I’ve played all year. But where I saw art, others who stopped by to check out Star Fox 2 just saw a blur of awkwardly rotating triangles at about 10 frames a second. Setting aside my appreciation for game history and nostalgia, Star Fox 2 is kind of a hot mess.

Some rats won't listen to reason. Just the other day, I met one at the top of a flight of stairs who asked me if the zombie-like creatures crucified below us were any danger to him, and I assured him they most certainly were. But the punk got it in his little rodent brain that I was lying for my own gain, so he tried to charge past them to the wharf beyond… and got fried by lightning that the husks vomited from their mouths. Toldja, little guy.

A funny thing happened after I beat Ruiner: I started having fun. My first playthrough was exhaustingly difficult. I don’t mind a challenge, but I also don’t want to feel like I’m banging my head against a wall for 10 hours, unsure of what I’m doing wrong. However, retreading the 14 levels of cyberpunk brutality as the fully powered-up version of my twin-stick killer finally let me enjoy the frantic, stylish combat.

NBA 2K18 can be compared to an NBA superstar entering his final years in the league: it’s confident and willing to take risks because it already knows it has a spot in the Hall of Fame. The legacy of NBA 2K18 – that is, its gameplay and presentation – are in a great place, and so while not every risk taken with MyGM and MyCareer pays off, it’s still a game that’s worth coming back to all year long.

Have you ever heard the saying, "There's no such thing as bad pizza?" No matter what, pizza's good by virtue of being pizza. A similar thing could be said for the many different versions of Minecraft. There really isn't such a thing as "bad Minecraft," just versions that aren't as good as the others. That's why, in spite of its many shortcomings, the New 3DS version is still an enjoyable Minecraft experience, even though it's not a great version.

In the cluttered landscape of fictional post-apocalyptic worlds, 2013’s SteamWorld Dig was a breath of fresh air. A steampunk Western, it sends you digging deep into the earth, searching out precious resources to sell in the dusty, one-mechanical horse town above. It’s a glorious a tale of robot cowboys, mutant humans and mysterious technology. SteamWorld Dig 2 is very much the sequel I was hoping for.

Everything that takes place between the hoops in a basketball game has a certain fluidity to it. Whether it’s James Harden rocketing past defenders in a fast break or LeBron James backing down a defender in the post, this is a game of style. And even though NBA Live 18 fails to establish a versatile set of modes to sustain interest, it’s able to mimic basketball’s style, fluidity, and intensity.

Luckily for Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite, looks aren’t everything. Even though its mixed cast of comic book and video game characters often look like they’ve been whacked with the ugly stone, the bold reinvention of this decades-old fighting game series’ tag-team mechanics is inspired. While Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite is definitely a strong fighting game deep down, it’s hard to get past just how distractingly bad and stiff the character design is.

Project CARS 2 is really the best kind of racing game sequel: one that’s improved so meaningfully it’s hard to go back to the previous instalment. The handling is utterly remarkable on a wheel or a pad, the expanded track selection is unmatched and boasts dynamic time and weather on every one, the much-improved car selection hits a whole host of fan-favourite beats, and the sound is seriously stunning.