The 10 best video games coming in 2022

Posted on December 30, 2021 by Admin

George RR Martin joins forces with the makers of Dark Souls, ghosts take over in Japan and a Nintendo sequel you could be playing all year

• More cultural highlights of 2022

(Xbox One/Series S/Series X, PlayStation 4/5, PC) The long-awaited fantasy epic from Dark Souls’ creators FromSoftware, with narrative input from George RR Martin. It combines a huge, detailed open world, inhabited by everything from dragons and wolves to trolls and patrolling soldiers, with the developer’s signature heart-in-mouth, swords-and-sorcery combat. An intriguing world to discover alone, or with other players.

The 15 best video games of 2021

Posted on December 23, 2021 by Admin

Whether you’re driving a supercar through Mexico or simply unpacking a cardboard box in an utterly engrossing way, the year offered plenty of gaming joy. Our critics pick the top titles

More on the best culture of 2021

A genuinely inventive tactical role-playing adventure that uses procedural generation to allow for player-created stories, all taking place in a fantasy world constructed from luscious papercraft set-pieces – like a digital board game.

Halo Infinite review – old-school blasting in sci-fi ‘Dad’ game

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Admin

PC, Xbox Series, Xbox One; Microsoft; 343 Industries
The engrossing flagship Xbox shooter returns with its fabled craggy supersoldier and plenty of style but not quite enough bang

Twenty years since Halo: Combat Evolved, Master Chief is still “finishing the fight”. Made infamous by Halo 2’s premature cliffhanger ending, the line is uttered with zero irony at Halo Infinite’s conclusion: it’s become the catchphrase for a series that is travelling in circles, always defaulting to something like the original fable of a craggy supersoldier fighting alien zealots for control of universe-ending Forerunner relics.

Infinite takes place on yet another gorgeous ringworld, where Master Chief teams up with a nervy pilot and a chirpy new AI buddy to battle a renegade group called the Banished. It’s the same old story with the same rousing musical motifs, but the geography has changed: main missions are now threaded through a lush open expanse comparable to that of a Far Cry game, where you’ll tackle sidequests such as hostage rescue, and claim bases that let you fast-travel and rearm. The extra space amplifies Halo’s existing brilliance as a martial playground, defined less by reflexes and accuracy than giddy improvisation, but it’s not quite enough to make this backward-glancing game unmissable.

Resident Evil Village review – nerve-shredding descent into horror

Posted on May 5, 2021 by Admin

PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X; Capcom
The action careers superbly through spooky gothic castles and underground complexes where monsters and a bloodsucking femme fatale lie in wait

It has been four years since Resident Evil 7 rescued the series from its action-heavy nadir and returned to the roots of survival horror: jump scares, and elaborate puzzles involving unattractive oil paintings. Now, Village seeks to bring back some of the gunplay introduced in Resident Evil 4 without losing the tension and dread. The result is a delightfully schlocky survival horror adventure that makes constant references to earlier games – and will bring much joy to fans.

Things start on an eerily domestic note, with Resident Evil 7 protagonist Ethan Winters and his wife Mia attempting to recover from their horrific experiences in isolated rural Louisiana by moving to … isolated rural eastern Europe. After a gruesome opening, in which Mia is shot and their baby kidnapped, Ethan must set out to discover what fresh hell he has landed in this time. You start out exploring the village of the title, a squalid, diseased little place, all cackling crones and mad-eyed yokels with shotguns, like some nightmarish Borat remake directed by Eli Roth. Most of the inhabitants have been slaughtered by four monstrous local lords at the behest of a cruel demigod. To save his daughter, Ethan must track these bizarre aristocratic sociopaths down to their lairs and kill them.