chronovore

Played on Steam. Finished in a single sitting. Absolutely charming, emotionally moving, and perfect. Have purchased for several other people who are also now fans. Amazing accomplishment.

An irreverent and bliss inducing game with solid, easy controls — as easy to play on an Apple Siri Remote as an 8BitDo Ultime controller. Continuously surprising, and hugely fun in couch-competitive modes, this game is perfect.

The Zero Build mode has improved what was already a great experience. Easily one of the best F2P games on the planet, I am happy I finally gave this game a chance. A remarkable achievement kept fresh by each season's new gameplay changes.

Strong out of the gate, and benefiting from well-directed updates, Festival replenishes the need vacated years ago by Rock Band and Guitar Hero. It's easy to drop into a quick game with other players and jam out virtually to great songs.

Despite a compelling visual style and competent audio, the gameplay in this is so frustrating and uneven that I was unable to stick with it despite four from-zero attempts. The combat feels janky, and combined with weakness from early weapon durability, early tasks are at odds with achievable goals. What's more, early islands can be depleted and process through in-game instruction, preventing the ability to progress unless waiting a day for resources to replenish. This one needed some more QA time, or user testing to prevent this mess.

More songs. Less autosave-induced deleting of your grinding-based progress data. Improvements were made, but not nearly enough.

I like singing in Rock Band, so I picked up Lips at launch. Ever since then, the annoying little game has presented a parade of bad design decisions that could only result from combining a Japanese developer with limited understanding of the 360, and Microsoft hiring them to make a 360 exclusive. Recently it was patched, which added... wait for it: XBL-wide Leaderboards. It also fixed a mean issue where DLC could be purchased, but would not show up in the game. Now the DLC shows up in the right spot, but I'm not biting, because after the first purchase, and spending 30 minutes on the phone to refund my account, I'm just not that anxious to verify their fix worked, just so I can belt out Smashmouth's ALL-STAR. But rather than continue to catalog the other minor gripes, I'll just hit the one that inspired this post: LIPS' illogical, apparently random auto-save feature, engaged itself just as I used the GUIDE to quit to Dashboard, thus corrupting my save data. This wiped all the progress I'd made in the game, including all of the accumulated badges and multiplayer wins. The latter's the only important one, because I only have one remaining Achievement, and it is based on the multiplayer wins.

The only game I've got all Achievements for on 360 -AND- Platinum Trophy for on PS4. Despite baffling UI decisions, this game has compelled me to put hundreds of hours into it. An absolutely stunning game.

If you need a GTA-like game that's still subversive enough to keep you engaged but can be played in front of kids, this is your game. Voice acting by the original cast, consistent laughs, and fun gameplay.

inFamous had a great unlockable ability to travel the open world by grinding on electrified train track. That mechanic is turned up to 11 in Sunset Overdrive, and players can grind train tracks, above and below electrical wires, the edge of any building, on top of wall-running, and walking on water. Dynamic, engaging traversal is a heap of fun, and the combat is intense and dangerous. Docking a single point for including tower defense, which is both required and feels out of place.

One of my favorite, fresh, and chill platformers from the PS3 era is reborn on Nintendo Switch! I couldn't be happier to revisit the setting and the feeling of playing in Eden!

I've been waiting for an open-world zombie game ever since Activision canceled "Dead Rush" at the beginning of this PS3/360 console generation. This is the game I'd hoped to get. "State of Decay" does just about everything right. Instead of relying on cinematics to tell the story and impress the player with a sense of drama and urgency, the gameplay itself manages to keep the player engaged and immersed in the world Undead Labs has created. Scavenging, sneaking, and fighting, players must try and keep their ever-depleting stock of supplies from dwindling to nothing. Most notably, rather than playing a single character, players much change between various members of their community due to fatigue or death, which allows playing different ways with different characters, due to each one's specific abilities. This game would be a perfect 10 for me, but it has some jarring camera problems, frequent framerate chugging, and a number of bugs which made it difficult to keep my base going. However, it's not enough to dock a point for it, and this is the best XBLA title I've ever played.

It's been a while since I've laughed this much playing a game. The writing is great, and the simple gameplay had me playing much longer than I'd intended to at every session. It's full of all kinds of moments which made me nostalgic for the days of imagining my crappy costume to be on par with the Star Wars movies' own costuming efforts. It's short and sweet. I can't wait for DF's next "bite-sized" game.