The Kunio-kun series is so old and spans so many consoles that you may have stumbled across one of its games without even knowing it’s part of a connected universe of beat-’em-ups. The best-known of them – Super Dodge Ball, Double Dragon, and River City Ransom – are all separate stories revolving around how there never seems to be a deficit of faces to punch in River City. River City Girls 2 is both a sequel to the excellent 2019 beat-‘em-up and the final form of the action-RPG design that River City Ransom pioneered in the late ‘80s. It’s only marginally different from the one before it, choosing to refine systems and expand in size instead of entirely overhauling how anything works. But when you kicked so much butt the first time, why change your technique?

The details of ...

By their very competitive, dog-eat-dog nature, battle royale games don’t tend to be about making friends with the people you meet. But with its big 2.0 revamp, Call of Duty: Warzone has made some admirable efforts toward inspiring us to work together, communicate, and socialize even as we fight to be the last ones standing. Some of its other new ideas don’t pay off quite as well, such as the relatively bland new map and its ill-advised backpack system. But even if you put all of that aside, the introduction of an excellent new PvPvE mode is more than reason enough to round up a squad and drop back into Warzone for a few matches. After all, the real victory screen might just be the friends we made along the way.

The first thought-provoking new social idea is that you can actually recru...

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy 7– Reunion is a perfect example of how a game can blur the line between a remaster and a remake, using the skeleton of its already great 2007 PSP original while completely rebuilding the muscle around it. Every change brings it much closer to 2020’s excellent Final Fantasy 7 Remake, from its gorgeously updated graphics to its considerably faster combat. However, Crisis Core stops short of the total upheaval FF7R leaned into, and many design choices made with the original PSP game in mind prevent this remaster from being an entirely unblemished reunion.

Just as before, Crisis Core is an action-focused prequel that follows Zack Fair, a plucky and likable foil to his far more moody companion, the iconic Cloud Strife...

While Far Cry 6’s previous DLCs may have put past villains from the series into the spotlight, the latest expansion returns to familiar territory in a different way: by totally jumping the shark. Dropping you back in the shoes of Dani Rojas, Lost Between Worlds is all about an alien entity called Fai that crash-lands in Yara, creating a multitude of time rifts and portals to alternate dimensions. What ensues is a web of interconnected semi-roguelite levels that you’re free to playthrough in any order you want. It’s a genuinely fun way to bring an end to Dani’s story that I found myself happily plowing through all six hours of in a single day, even if it did essentially feel like a watered down version of the main game.

Similar to how Far Cry 3 brought us the neon-dripped Blood Drag...

A proper remake might be rising from the grave next year, but the festering corpse of Dead Space has come lurching back to life early in the form of The Callisto Protocol. This spiritual successor to the sci-fi survival horror series recreates the haunting blood-streaked hallways and space zombie-slaying hallmarks first established on the USG Ishimura back in 2008, and injects the gore with more awe than ever before thanks to some strikingly detailed splashes of blood and guts. Unfortunately, while the mutant dismemberment has never been more vivid, The Callisto Protocol’s shortcomings appear just as clearly...

The Callisto Protocol is a game with a myriad of inspirations and references within its design, but on the technical front it is most certainly a leader. Striking Distance is a relatively small, and certainly new studio, filled with a mix of veterans and new members who have collaborated to create one of the most forward-looking games of this generation. But before I get into that, I need to note that while the game is cross-generation, our review code only had access to the new-gen consoles and later the PC version.

Game Modes

The PS5 and Xbox Series X both have two modes: one is the default, which you could call a Quality mode or Ray Tracing mode, which runs at 30fps and has a dynamic scaling resolution with counts ranging from 3456×1944 to 2304×1296, effectively 90% to 60% of 4K...

Two years after the original Call of Duty: Warzone dropped into the battle royale arena, its sequel, Warzone 2.0, has arrived with a new map and some enticing new game modes. Or at least, it would offer those things if network and server issues weren’t preventing me from playing a single full, clean match since its launch on Wednesday. That could just be the typical release window woes, and I’ll be holding off on my full scored review until things have had a chance to settle and I’ve played more, but anyone looking to dive in over the weekend should be prepared for a bumpy landing.

Warzone 2...

Usually the most unsettling thing you can find in a hotel is a mysterious mattress stain or clumps of hair in the shower drain, but The Devil in Me presents you with accommodations that are less like a Best Western and more like your worst nightmare. Inspired by a real life murder castle and its infamous serial killer hotelier, the fourth and final episode in The Dark Pictures Anthology’s first season presents a fascinating facility full of ghastly deathtraps and creepy animatronics to encounter. Unfortunately it squanders it all on a bland band of lead characters, and pads its runtime with tension-draining detours that made me wish I could have called down to reception to request an earlier check out time.

The Devil in Me’s premise is certainly a tantalizing one...

Feelings of glee and wonder not unlike walking into an arcade full of classic games befell me as I booted up Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, gawking at its wide and varied wonders. This collection offers a completely new, very fun way to explore several decades of Atari arcade machines, consoles, handhelds, and PCs. With no musty old, red museum ropes to restrain me (only five of the 103 games require unlocking), I found myself not just absorbing, but exploring the past – like that chunky pixel in Adventure for the Atari 2600 gliding through rainbow-colored castles. Experiencing history in Atari 50 is like nothing else I’ve ever seen in any collection before, let alone a documentary, book, or a classroom. It’s all of those things in one, and a lot more fun!

If you’ve played a ...

I don’t know if I’ve ever played something as gobsmackingly unhinged as Goat Simulator 3. Developer Coffee Stain North’s doggedly rebellious attitude is apparent in everything from the incoherent “story” to gameplay so over-the-top that half the time it’s hard to tell what’s happening – even the title refuses to play by the rules, skipping Goat Simulator 2 and going straight to three for no particular reason. Throw in four-player co-op that multiplies the madness to even greater extremes as you run rampant through a large open-world map filled with things to lick, headbutt, and blow up, and you’ve got yourself a game so absurd it’s hard to imagine being bored for even a second...