REVIEW | NBA 2K27 | THE GAME WAY BETTER THAN THE PRODUCT

NBA 2K27 makes its strongest case the moment the ball hits the hardwood, and starts losing it almost everywhere beyond the court. Once the game is in motion, Visual Concepts still knows how to make a convincing basketball simulation.Movement is responsive enough, defense has more purpose, contact carries more weight, individual players retain recognizable styles, and there is enough tactical depth beneath the controls to make a simple match...

PUBLISHED | 1O.O9.IIO26

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REVIEW | THE BLOOD OF DAWNWALKER | CHOICE 1ST, FIGHT 2ND...NICE

The easiest way to misunderstand The Blood of Dawnwalker is to approach it expecting another combat-first action RPG wrapped in expensive dark fantasy production. Rebel Wolves certainly gives it swords, monsters, vampiric abilities, dodges, blocks and enough violence to satisfy that description on the surface, but the game becomes much more interesting once it becomes clear that combat is not the center around which everything else has been...

PUBLISHED | O8.O9.IIO26

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REVIEW | STAR WARS: ZERO COMPANY | STRATEGY FINDS ITS STAR WARS

Star Wars has spent most of its gaming life selling scale. Star Destroyers crossing the sky, lightsabers carving through rooms, armies colliding while John Williams or somebody doing a very convincing impression of him makes sure you understand that Something Important Is Happening. star wars zero company chooses almost the opposite approach. Its best moments happen when the galaxy temporarily stops mattering and your entire attention shrinks to...

PUBLISHED | 3O.O8.IIO26

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REVIEW | MORTAL SHELL II | SHARPENED IN EVERY DIRECTION

A heavy silence hangs over the ruined roads and forgotten settlements of Mortal Shell II, broken only by distant creatures, clashing steel and the strange machinery of a world that seems to be slowly collapsing into itself. Cold Symmetry understood one of the most important things about its first game: Mortal Shell was memorable not because it copied the structure of Dark Souls particularly well, but because its world had texture. Six years later, that...

PUBLISHED | 18.O8.IIO26

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REVIEW | THE SINKING CITY 2 | LOVECRAFT LEARNS TO SURVIVE

Flooded streets, buildings slowly surrendering to black water and creatures using dead human bodies as something between shelter and machinery The Sinking City has never lacked imagery capable of making a place feel fundamentally wrong. What the original game lacked was a mechanical structure equally capable of sustaining that feeling. Frogwares built an evocative Lovecraftian world around investigation, but combat, traversal and the large open environ...

PUBLISHED | 23.O8.IIO26

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REVIEW | HELL LET LOOSE: VIETNAM | THE OLD FPS SOUL SURVIVES

A burst of rifle fire passes through the trees, somebody calls for smoke over the radio, a helicopter circles somewhere beyond the canopy and half a squad disappears before anyone can clearly identify where the shots came from. Hell Let Loose: Vietnam does not introduce itself with the clean rhythm, generous information and constant rewards of a modern mainstream shooter. It throws players into a battlefield that is difficult to read, dangerous to cross and...

PUBLISHED | 13.O8.IIO26

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REVIEW | MIDNIGHT MOMENTS | NEON IN A SMALLER FRAME

The empty grid does not stay empty for long. Midnight Moments does not begin with a grand urban plan, an economy waiting to collapse or a list of objectives pretending to be creative freedom. Instead, it drops you into a compact cyberpunk playground where the only real question is what kind of place you want to build after dark. Buildings can be stacked into dense little clusters, alleyways threaded between them, rooftops dressed with antennas and...

PUBLISHED | O9.O8.IIO26

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REVIEW | TENNIS ELBOW 4 | SIMULATION READY, ANIMATIONS NOT

The first rally makes the priorities obvious. The ball has weight, spin changes its trajectory, poor positioning limits the available angles, and an attempted winner can collapse into an error when it is taken from the wrong place or struck under pressure. Instead of disguising tennis behind generous timing windows and dramatic presentation, Tennis Elbow 4 asks the player to understand spacing, anticipation, inertia, shot selection and risk. Holding a stroke button...

PUBLISHED | O7.O8.IIO26

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REVIEW | SOVEREIGN TOWER | MANAGE THE COURT, REWRITE FATE

A newly crowned ruler sits before a procession of worried citizens, demanding nobles, foreign representatives and eccentric knights, each convinced that their problem should become the kingdom’s immediate priority. One request may involve trade, another a dangerous creature, while the next could begin as an absurd inconvenience before developing into a political crisis. Sovereign Tower rarely gives its monarch enough information to guarantee the correct...

PUBLISHED | O6.O8.IIO26

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REVIEW | CORSAIR COVE | PARADISE NEEDS SUPPLY LINES

A wooden settlement climbs the side of a tropical cliff while ships cross water so clear and inviting that managing another production bottleneck briefly stops feeling important. Rope bridges hang between rock faces, elevators carry goods toward higher platforms, pirates wander between taverns and workshops, and the entire bay resembles a pirate postcard that has somehow come to life. Corsair Cove understands the immediate attraction of its setting...

PUBLISHED | 3O.O7.IIO26

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