Category: reviews

Anecdotally, I’ve heard from a lot of people who say they’re tired of roguelites. There’s been a years-long run on this genre, especially in the indie space where drilling down on systems, rather than expensive environments and setpieces, can be cost-effective while still producing something exciting and worthwhile. Because a roguelite game can take so many different shapes, I’ve not yet had my fill of them. Maybe fatigue will set in one day, though if games in the genre continue to be as great as Wild Bastards, I don’t think I’ll ever grow weary of them.

Wild Bastards comes from Blue Manchu, the same studio that released Void Bastards in 2019. Like that prior project, Wild Bastards is a strategy-shooter hybrid wrapped in a roguelite framework. But where Void Bastards drew clear inspiration from games like BioShock and System Shock 2, comparisons for Wild Bastards are harder to draw. It’s a fascinating blend of arena shooter, turn-based strategy, and even something like a single-player hero shooter all in one.

Wild Bastards is a sci-fi western mash-up with the same subtle sense of humor as the team’s last game. In it, you’ll explore procedurally generated clusters of planets in the hopes of reassembling your posse against all odds. Thirteen outlaws were killed by the game’s main antagonist, and it’s up to you to resurrect them and reassemble the titular Wild Bastards crew.

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Konami is trying to figure out how to make Silent Hill games again. After more than a decade away from the series (and arguably many more years since a good one), multiple new Silent Hill projects have recently debuted or soon shall. Silent Hill devotees like me often wonder whether the publisher can recapture the magic of the series’ early games. But even if it can’t, at least we have Hollowbody. Made by a single person, Hollowbody sometimes goes too far past being a homage, but most of the time, it stands apart as a memorable entry in the crowded space of horror games drumming up the past.

This year, Hollowbody is the closest thing you’ll find to Silent Hill 2 that isn’t Bloober Team’s forthcoming remake. Its solo developer, Nathan Hamley (working under the studio name Headware Games), admits his love for the series is the driving force in creating Hollowbody, and there are times when that adoration is even too obvious. Everything from how you explore its world and unlock new pathways by solving tricky puzzles to how you fight enemies and even unlock multiple endings all feel pulled from the PS2 classic. An early section of the third-person survival-horror game takes place in corridors that are so similar to Silent Hill 2’s hospital section that it gave me deja vu, and the monsters that stalk just beyond the reach of your flashlight stumble into attacking you like that game’s iconic nurses.

There are even a few moments in which you come upon threateningly deep, dark holes that you drop into without knowing what’s on the other side. One corridor, in particular, prompted me to ask myself the same question that Silent Hill 2’s absurdly long stairwell previously prompted: “How long is this thing?” The callbacks border on copies at times, but Hollowbody doesn’t settle for being merely a clone of the developer’s favorite game–though it is fascinating to see how one person in 2024 can make something very much like a game that required a much larger team just a few decades ago.

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Like its past several installments, NBA 2K25 is the best sports game I’ve played this year, but it still comes with a bolded, can’t-miss asterisk. This year’s basketball sim from Visual Concepts represents the latest in a series that has been lapping the competition in the sports genre–a group of games each seeking to be your live-service obsession. None justify their time commitment as well as NBA 2K25, which is in a league of its own–for presentation, gameplay, and overall immersion first and foremost–but the whole is actually less than the sum of its parts due to long-embedded pay-to-win tactics I fear will never be undone.

This year’s biggest changes involve a new dribbling physics system that gives ball-control a more realistic feel. The impact of this is hard to explain but easy to recognize when you’re playing it, aided by enhancements to the game’s ProPlay animation system that converts real-life game footage to in-game mechanics. Virtually everyone has, at one point in their lives, played basketball, even if it’s just shooting baskets at the park or a friend’s house. You know what it feels like to maintain ball control and dribble, keeping it away from other players and feeling the weight of the ball as you learn to control it without needing to observe yourself doing so. NBA 2K25 captures that authentically, adding additional support to an already-excellent gameplay foundation that goes back years.

Unlike some other series that dispose of ideas if they don’t work after a few years, NBA 2K has always seemed more committed to iteration, tweaking unwelcome features until they become enjoyable ones, and turning good aspects into great ones. Year two of the ProPlay system expresses this attribute. 2K24’s foundational overhaul is made more nuanced with numerous new animations, many of them built to mimic a player’s real-life play style. Basketball is a sport composed of many individuals who approach the sport in different ways, such that no two hoopers play exactly alike. NBA 2K25 better replicates that player specificity with more unique jumpshots, signature moves, and even post-score celebrations that are pulled from real life.

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Supermassive and Behaviour have each been instrumental in defining the genre over the past decade. The former’s horror games have come as cinematic choose-your-own-adventure stories where the fates of multiple playable characters come down to your choices, often made in high-stress situations. Meanwhile, the latter blazed a trail now well-trodden: asymmetric multiplayer horror. Dead By Daylight’s (DBD) Fortnite-like approach of swallowing up many major horror icons into one space has given it not just staying power, but a twisted Disneyland vibe. Now, with The Casting of Frank Stone, the pair combine forces to tell a Dead By Daylight origin story that will appeal most to fans of the PvP game, though I can say, as a casual DBD fan, I found it enjoyable on its own merits too, despite its issues.

Frank Stone plays much like Supermassive’s run of games that began with 2015’s Until Dawn. It is a gameplay-light, movie-like experience that you get to direct, in a sense. You’ll control several characters, form their relationships with others in the story, and, most excitingly, try to keep them alive through a story full of quick-time events (QTEs) and doomed choices that can get them killed off permanently.

For me, this formula hasn’t outstayed its welcome yet, and I’m not sure it ever will. It feels like the kind of game I would happily play each autumn for the rest of my life, even as the narrative merits vary by game. Historically, I’ve found that no Supermassive script truly stands up to scrutiny, and Frank Stone is no different in that regard. Because of the branching paths, sometimes you may see a scene that feels a bit off, like it better suits a choice I didn’t make and never saw.

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