IGN

• PS5
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

Horizon Call of the Mountain’s exciting highs elevate it just enough above its often monotonous climbing mechanics to create a fun first blockbuster-scale entry into the PS VR2 library. Through intuitive design, awesome spectacle, and gripping combat, Horizon’s first step into virtual reality is one packed with exciting encounters that its slower stretches may sometimes detract from, but never threaten to derail completely. It’s an enjoyable, if not essential, chapter of the Horizon story.

• PS5
• XSX/S
• PC
• 4 / 10
• États-Unis

As someone who considers themself an action game buff, Wanted: Dead let me down on just about every front. Its combat may be fun for a few hours, but eventually I realized that it was just a pool of shallow water to splash around in. The fights never evolved in any interesting or meaningful way, the minimal enemy variety never challenged me to change up my tactics, and worst of all I always felt weak, even when I fully maxed out the skill tree. Add on bland visuals, a distinct lack of personality and charm, and frequent crashes, and it all amounts to one of the first big disappointments of 2023.

• SWITCH
• PS4
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is full of charm and nostalgia alike, with cutesy versions of my favorite Final Fantasy characters and excellent remixes of the iconic songs that accompanied them. The light RPG mechanics, coupled with traditional rhythm mechanics, is easy enough to get into and deep enough to entertain fans of both. It's a little bit of a letdown that there isn't any storyline for your party of heroes to follow or another hook to keep me playing beyond beating my own scores in Endless mode, but its impressive tracklist makes Theatrhythm Final Bar Line an enjoyable way to listen to and play along with the most memorable songs from the Final Fantasy series.

• PC
• 6 / 10
• États-Unis

A rousing mystery brought to life by a great voice cast and nuanced character writing can't really save Deliver Us Mars from its shortcomings. Poor technical performance during cutscenes and backstory that is too often delivered by these barely-differentiated mannequins make it difficult to get sucked into this extraterrestrial world. Even when it’s running smoothly, frustrating climbing and platforming mechanics are just a chore to get through so that you can reach the more clever puzzles and rewarding exploration that break up the annoyances with moments of wonder and satisfaction. But I could never shake the feeling that Deliver Us Mars simply bit off more dehydrated astronaut food than it could chew.

• PC
• PS5
• XSX/S
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

In nearly every way, Hogwarts Legacy is the Harry Potter RPG I’ve always wanted to play. Its open-world adventure captures all the excitement and wonder of the Wizarding World with its memorable new characters, challenging and nuanced combat, and a wonderfully executed Hogwarts student fantasy that kept me glued to my controller for dozens of hours. It’s certainly weighed down by technical issues, a lackluster main story, and some poor enemy variety, but even those couldn’t come close to breaking its enchanting spell over me.

• PC
• PS4
• SWITCH
• XONE
• 5 / 10
• États-Unis

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a simple, unambitious platformer that pales in comparison to its peers in every way besides all the charm and humor it borrows from the iconic show. Whether it’s the incredibly basic jumping and swinging that becomes irksomely repetitive within minutes, or the humdrum combat that has you mopping up the same handful of enemies hundreds of times without anything to meaningfully differentiate the first battle from the last, Cosmic Shake badly lacks the imagination and creativity for which the show is known. The original cast’s voice performances and silly gags are certainly a highlight, but if you were hoping for something akin to Super Mario Odyssey in a pineapple under the sea, sadly this falls far short.

• PC
• PS5
• XSX/S
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

With its stunningly redesigned spaceship, smartly and subtly enhanced story, and spectacularly reimagined action scenes, Motive Studio has managed to successfully breathe new life into the seminal sci-fi horror universe of Dead Space. Despite the fact I’ve returned to the 2008 original several times over the years and found it to hold up fairly well, my latest journey through the darkened hallways of the USG Ishimura still managed to consistently surprise me and pull me into Isaac’s plight far more than ever before, while still satisfying my desire to butcher undead astronauts with an enjoyable arsenal of wildly unsafe mining tools. It’s clear that this superb Dead Space remake has been a labour of love for the team at Motive Studios, who’ve very carefully balanced innovation and renovation with preservation, and to their credit the end result is undoubtedly the definitive way to experience – or re-experience – one of the best survival horror shooters that Capcom never made.

• PC
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

Pizza Tower is a very special 2D platformer that transcends its inspirations and becomes something even greater. It’s a short ride, and it’ll be most appealing to those who are keen to restart levels in an effort to improve their score, but even if that’s not you, there’s a ton to like here. It is one of the most straight up fun and refreshing platformers I’ve played in recent memory, sporting an unforgettably unique art style, excellent animations, immensely rewarding platforming, wonderfully creative level design, a joyful sense of humor, and one of the best soundtracks of the year so far. Move over Wario, Peppino Spaghetti is-a number one now.

• SWITCH
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

It’s no small feat that Fire Emblem Engage is able to tell a simple-but-fun story that celebrates the vast history of its series in a way that doesn’t rely on prior knowledge of that legacy. Building the perfect team of diverse characters and pairing them with the Emblem Rings of past heroes allows for tons of customization and strategy, and blasting through the enemy ranks with their special powers is always immensely satisfying. Both its main and side missions provide a good deal of challenge, and clever twists and obstacles offset a reliance on overly familiar mission objectives. Couple all that with a suite of quality-of-life improvements that immediately feel vital and Fire Emblem Engage proves itself worthy enough to be counted alongside the legacy it honors so well.

• PC
• PS4
• PS5
• XSX/S
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

The power of One Piece’s story, world, art, and characters does a lot of the heavy lifting in making One Piece Odyssey a joy to play, even if I could beat most of the battles in my sleep. It really could have used some sort of way to adjust the difficulty and add even just a little more tension to its fights to make them more satisfying to get through, and a lot of the quest design in the middle relies too much on backtracking through already-visited areas, but One Piece Odyssey nails the most important parts: The heart, humor, and soul of One Piece.

• PC
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

Dragonflight reignites the sense of wonder and exploration that originally drew me to World of Warcraft, for about the first 30 or 40 hours. Beyond that, it definitely starts to feel a bit threadbare. Dragon riding is fun as hell, and I love the design of the new zones. But this expansion's back-to-basics approach is very much a double-edged sword. I probably won't burn out as fast because there aren't a million things to do every day just to feel like I'm keeping up like there were in Shadowlands. But at the same time, I don't feel like there's enough to do that's genuinely interesting once I've cleared all the very well-written side quests. An excellent new crafting system is gated behind mind-numbing amounts of mindless grinding for resources, in addition to weekly caps, which feels like a double jeopardy situation. I like Dragonflight, but I fell out of love with it not long after hitting max level. I really hope Blizzard looks at this as a rebuilding year for WoW, and doesn't hesitate to iterate on some of the inventive ideas in Shadowlands that were maybe only a step or two away from being great.

• PC
• PS5
• XSX/S
• PS4
• XONE
• SWITCH
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

Whether you're a long-time fan of these games, or you’ve just been recently introduced to the beat-’em-up by the genre’s renaissance over the past few years, River City should be your next stop. River City Girls 2’s RPG elements, dense combat, and witty sense of humor is a real shot in the arm to a genre that has been celebrating its history lately, but also in need of some innovation. Here, by expanding on its 2019 revival of the foundational design concept laid all the way back in 1989, Wayforward has blended history seamlessly with modern day vibes to create something true to its roots and new on the scene at the same time. You might call being led back and forth through the city’s map stale, but you can’t say those locations aren’t gorgeous and full of great music.

• XSX/S
• XONE
• PS4
• PS5
• SWITCH
• PC
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy 7– Reunion pushes the definition of a remaster to the edge, completely renovating the 15-year-old PSP game’s graphics, combat, and more. That said, many of the design choices made for the handheld original – like bite-sized side missions and an abundance of loading screens – are left intact, keeping this experience from feeling completely modern. But even with a few aging quirks, Crisis Core remains a fun, compelling, and integral chapter in the ongoing Compilation of Final Fantasy 7, and Reunion is the absolute best way to experience it.

• PC
• XSX/S
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

High on Life is an irreverent, absurd shooter that manages to shine with its outrageous humor, silly setting and story, and some really goofy, foul-mouthed guns that pull the whole thing together for the vast majority of the time. Combat is a bit sloppy, especially during the first act, and the whole sci-fi adventure sometimes has an unpolished feel to it, but once you get some new tools of destruction and movement options, it rises to the occasion. Not all of its jokes find their punchline, but with memorable boss fights, unique alt-fire abilities and exploration, and way more terrible movies to watch than I expected, this wacky journey is definitely worth your time.

• PC
• 4 / 10
• États-Unis

Choo-Choo Charles is a silly mess of an adventure, with its joke of a premise falling short of ever delivering the punchline. Combat against the evil train is always tedious and repetitive, and running quests on foot is even more unappealing with awful stealth sections through dilapidated hallways. Throw in some annoying bugs and a lifeless, empty map, and this funny nugget of an idea disappoints in so many ways it actually makes me angry. Sadly, I have to recommend you choo-choose a different way to spend your time.

• PC
• PS5
• XSX/S
• PS4
• XONE
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

The Callisto Protocol is a supremely atmospheric and action-heavy tour through a spectacular slaughterhouse set in distant space. Its largely linear design makes for minimal backtracking, meaning it trims the fat while leaving no shortage of bone and gristle to rip and tear. However, it also betrays its survival horror roots by regularly tipping the balance of power too far in favour of the player, and while there’s plenty of murderous fun to be had using giant grinding mechanisms to make mulch out of mutants, such cheap thrills come at the high cost of puncturing any tension and dread that the tremendous art and audio design work so hard to invoke. Aside from the meaty melee combat, there’s also the overriding sense that there’s not a lot here that hasn’t been done before – and there’s disappointingly little to do once you’ve beaten the campaign. Thus The Callisto Protocol is a satisfyingly gory spiritual successor to the Dead Space series, but it’s ultimately more of a striking modern mimic than a scary new mutation.

• PC
• SWITCH
• PS4
• PS5
• XONE
• XSX/S
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

With Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Firaxis has put itself in the league of RPG developers like BioWare, Obsidian, Bethesda, and Larian. Its innovative turn-based hero combat system takes a bit of time to get going, but once it does it makes excellent use of card game mechanics to keep battles fresh, evolving, and unpredictable over the course of an epic-length campaign – bashing enemies into things for increased damage is endlessly entertaining. The supernatural apocalypse story is given emotional weight by the family relationship between the hero and villain at the heart of it. Building intense friendships with famed Marvel superheroes we’ve seen in comics, movies, and games for decades does tend to feel forced and weird, but learning all their backstories and conflicts with teammates can be intriguing, and the fact that nearly everything you do outside of combat makes you more powerful in the next fight means it all tends to be worth doing.

• PC
• PS4
• PS5
• XONE
• XSX/S
• 6 / 10
• États-Unis

When you get right down to it, most of Gungrave G.O.R.E feels like a missed opportunity. There’s a great combat system here, but the lack of variety and repetitive enemy design often let it down. The art, courtesy of Trigun’s Yasuhiro Nightow and Ikumi Nakamura, is fantastic and oozes style, but the story told in that attractive setting isn’t very interesting. The music and sound design are largely wonderful, too, but the voice acting is a little uneven. I can easily see its potential, but a mishmash of missteps prevent Gungrave G.O.R.E from ever reaching it.