Stevivor

Once jumping into arcade mode, I realised I should really have focused on its ladders because they have more of an actual story — or at least, an ending — and showcase the brutality that Invincible is known for. There, and in its other modes, you’ll see heads explode thanks to some truly graphic overkills, or entire bodies atomised in others...It’s here, though, that you’ll begin to notice the repetition — it’s either one or the other, heads or entire bodies. That same feeling of sameishness reverberates through VS‘ roster, which features 18 characters but only three or four real archetypes. It’s admittedly difficult to build a bunch of diverse styles around so many Viltrumites.

The true joy of Tides of Tomorrow comes from its cast of recurring characters -- survivors, pirates, and those of faith who make the world around them feel fully fleshed out.

Looking objectively at what Lord of Hatred offers, it’s a hard sell.

My best piece of advice here is to take advantage of Living the Dream‘s publicly available demo; create a couple Miis, set them loose upon one another, and get the flavour of what’s going on. From there, it’ll be up to you if you want to go whole hog.

I was really impressed with what Capcom has achieved with an all-new title, building a unique and vibrant world, even on the barren surface of the moon.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Forza Horizon 6 — it’s the high level of quality that we’ve come to expect from Playground Games releases — but I’m a little burnt out by it all. [Hands-On Impressions]

No matter which of People of Note‘s three pillars interests you the most, they’re all extremely well-crafted. You can see Final Fantasy‘s heavy influence in the way People of Note‘s RPG core looks and operates. Cadence, Fret, and the rest of her band are not only interesting in their backgrounds, but unique in the ways that they sound and play. And if the idea of puzzles on top of all this dissuade you, they shouldn’t — each of these pillars can be dialled up or down to present a challenge that you can set for yourself. Priced at $24.99 USD, this is an easy commendation for those who love old school RPGs, music, or puzzles. Give it a go for yourself.

While Marathon hasn’t grabbed me yet, I’m going to keep plugging away at it before bolting a score on to this review and calling it a day. There’s a lot here, most of it good, and as long as Sony backs Marathon through this teething phase I think we could have a gem on our hands – with some aggressive polishing, of course.

At the end of the day, Monster Hunter Stories 3 is a game that wants you to spend a LOT of time playing it – but it respects that time also. Much like the mainline Monster Hunter series, Stories wants you to spend time thinking about and preparing your loadout before each big fight, fighting and crafting and hatching your way to the right configuration. Battles themselves also take strategy and forethought, making sure you memorise a monster’s patterns and weaknesses to come out victorious. But, once you’ve proved you can do that? It’s all about making life easy for you, rewarding that time you invested. With so many different systems at play, it’s almost a relief to be able to Quick Finish a battle, or easily search for a gene I want my favourite beast to have; I’m keento see what’s in store next, and Stories 3 is excited to show it to me.

I’m not trying to yuck anyone’s yum here and realise that there are many Fatal Frame fans who will be as pumped for this remake as I was Resident Evil 2. To those people, I truly hope that you have a blast. To many others, most of whom have just experienced truly desperate and bleak survival horror through Grace Ashcroft in Resident Evil Requiem, I say simply that this ain’t it. You’ll end up far more frustrated than entertained.