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OpinionImpressionsGTA Online’s New Island Is Boring
After weeks of teasing and trailers, Grand Theft Auto Online’s latest update, its biggest ever, was released today. The Cayo Perico Heist update adds a new island and heist to the game, as well as 250+ songs, new weapons, and the proverbial “more.” But the star of the update is that new island, Cayo Perico,…
By Zack Zwiezen -
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OpinionGames Made Under Crunch Conditions Don’t Deserve ‘Best Direction’ Awards
Last night, The Last of Us Part II walked away from The Game Awards with seven trophies, including those for Game of the Year, Best Narrative, Best Audio Design, Best Performance (by Laura Bailey as Abby), Innovation in Accessibility, and Best Action/Adventure. Arguments can be made as to whether it deserved those or not, but…
By Ian Walker -
OpinionThe Cyberpunk 2077 Review Drama
Cyberpunk 2077 is out in the wild. After eight long years the whole world can now judge it for themselves, through whichever perspective or tint of glasses they so choose. And best of all, for 99.9% of those players, they won’t ever have to justify their feelings to the rest of the audience. However, for…
By John Walker -
OpinionImpressionsCyberpunk 2077 Is Surprisingly Fine On Stadia
Cyberpunk 2077 is the biggest game of the year, but currently the game doesn’t look great or run well on consoles, especially the older base machines. But how does this big blockbuster game fair on Stadia? Surprisingly, the experience isn’t terrible and might even be better than playing on a console. Though it’s not perfect…
By Zack Zwiezen -
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OpinionImpressionsKate Bishop Makes Avengers Exciting Again, At Least For A Few Hours
The Kate Bishop version of Hawkeye has arrived as a new playable character for Marvel’s Avengers, bringing with her three or four hours of fresh single-player content to Square Enix’s stale co-op superhero game. To be fair, any new playable character would have had the same effect, but Kate is pretty damn great. Following the…
By Mike Fahey -
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OpinionImpressionsThe Original Fire Emblem Is A Weird Game For The Switch To End Its Year On
I’ve spent the last week, in odd moments here and there, helping Fire Emblem’s Prince Marth search for a legendary sword and defeat the forces of darkness to rescue his kingdom from an evil wizard. Throughout all of it, in good times and bad, one question kept bubbling up to the surface: why? Why did…
By Ethan Gach -
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OpinionImpressionsCake Bash Is A Deliciously Sweet Take On Mario Party
Everyone loves a good sugar rush. It’s why, no matter how big the backlog, we gravitate to games that could generously be qualified as comfort food. But the sweetest sugar-rush I’ve run into lately isn’t some paint-by-numbers first-person shooter you’ve played a hundred times or some formulaic open-world adventure you won’t even need a tutorial…
By Ari Notis -
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OpinionImpressionsWorld Of Warcraft Shadowlands’ Alt-Leveling System Is A Refreshing Change
Unlike World of Warcraft’s Legion and Battle For Azeroth expansions, which gave players a choice on which zones to level up their characters, Shadowlands’ story campaign is very linear. Fortunately you only have to play through it once. With the new Threads of Fate mode, players who’ve reached max level can skip the story with…
By Mike Fahey -
OpinionImpressionsImmortal‘s Version Of Assassin’s Creed‘s Leap Of Faith Is More Of A Panicked Plummet
There’s a moment at the beginning of Immortals Fenyx Rising, the new open-world adventure from the developers of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, where it feels like newly-forged hero Fenyx is going to go full-on assassin. She climbs a massive stature, surveys the land, and then prepares to leap gracefully to the ground. She would have done…
By Mike Fahey -
OpinionImpressionsFallout 76‘s Steel Dawn Update Feels More Like An Old-School Fallout Adventure
Fallout 76’s latest free expansion brings the series’ fan-favorite fascists back to Appalachia with a new mini-campaign that made me briefly forget I was playing an MMO. Steel Dawn, which came out a week ahead of schedule after a patch accidentally went out early on Xbox, adds new building areas called Shelters, some more cosmetics…
By Ethan Gach -
OpinionImpressionsRed Dead Online’s Latest, Disappointing Update Shows GTA Online Is Still Rockstar’s Favorite
Red Dead Online’s latest update isn’t much. While Rockstar plans on adding a big new island to GTA Online later this month, complete with a new heist and more, Red Dead Online’s end of the year update is far smaller. And while some small amount of this new update is good, including some new bounty…
By Zack Zwiezen -
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OpinionImpressionsThe Switch Version Of Immortals: Fenyx Rising Tries Real Hard
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is not on the Switch. Neither is Watch Dogs Legion. The only one of this fall’s three vast, open-world Ubisoft games to grace the Switch is Immortals: Fenyx Rising. It doesn’t look as good or run as well as it does on Xboxes and PlayStations, of course, but for a Switch game…
By Mike Fahey