A Plague Tale: Requiem is an effective sequel that builds on the foundation of its predecessor to offer a bigger experience, with more elaborate set pieces. Despite the increase in scale, however, the game’s strength still relies on its oppressive atmosphere, which is now successfully linked to the protagonist’s internal journey.

Amicia and her little brother, Hugo, are in the county of Provence, researching his sickness, the so-called “Macula” that connects him with the rat plague. The first minutes are light-hearted, as the siblings play hide-and-seek with their friend Lucas, and Hugo pretends to be a king protecting his kingdom. They want to restart their lives [...]

Bramble: The Mountain King is a great cinematic platformer that presents a dark fairy tale punctuated by some striking imagery. Telling some macabre stories based on Nordic folklore, the game only falters when it makes these tales a bit disconnected from the protagonist’s journey.

The story begins when a boy named Olle wakes up from a nightmare in the middle of the night to find his older sister, Lillemor, gone. Olle decides to venture into the woods in search of her, but they both end up falling down a hill right into a world of fantasy full of wonderful creatures and terrifying monsters, which kidnap Lillemor.

The narrative is framed as a fairy tale, told by a female [...]

Marvel’s Spider-Man is a competent if uninspired take on the famous superhero: borrowing its overall structure from the modern open-world design, Insomniac’s game excels when it comes to traversal and movement but offers a by-the-books story, some questionable stealth sections, and a combat system that heavily impresses at first, but may eventually overstay its welcome.

The game’s first right decision is to present Peter Parker as an already experienced Spider-Man, as there’s no need to cover tiresome ground and show his origin story yet again. So, when the game opens, Peter has already made a friend in the police, Yuri Watanabe, shares a troubled history with Mary Jane, and [...]

Originally released on the Gamecube, Pikmin is an inventive real-time strategy game that exudes charm and purpose in its design: it’s a meticulously crafted experience that boasts great art direction and offers a unique take on the genre.

We play as Olimar, a space explorer who crash-lands on a strange planet after colliding with a meteor. The air is toxic and his life-support system has only 30 days of energy left, which gives him a narrow timeframe to rebuild his ship, called the Dolphin, and leave. Luckily, he soon finds some strange plant-like creatures that start to follow him around and obey his commands – with the help of these pikmin, Olimar must find the missing parts [...]

Quantum Break is a very ambitious project that tries to merge the format of a live-action series with a third-person action game about time travel while presenting choices that shape both narrative forms. The story, however, ends up forgotten in the process, plagued by a plethora of one-note characters, underdeveloped elements, and thematic inconsistencies.

The protagonist is Jack Joyce, who one day is asked by an old friend, the tech genius Paul Serene, to come to Riverport to help with his project. Jack’s brother, William, was Serene’s assistant until he started to voice concerns about its safety – it’s a machine that replicates a black hole, after all. So, when Serene [...]

Batman: The Enemy Within is a worthy follow-up to the first Telltale game about the caped crusader, with a strong focus on character development and one of the most unusual and fascinating renditions of the Joker to date. It’s a game about how the hero of Gotham creates his own villains: how the violence he enacts in the name of justice has ripples that end up forming the city’s greatest monsters.

The story starts with Riddler invading a casino to get back at its owner. Bruce is attending the very same casino at the time, so it doesn’t take long for Batman to crash the party and put a stop to Riddler’s scheme. The villain, however, leaves a clue for Batman to pursue in the [...]