IGN

• SWITCH
• 6 / 10
• États-Unis

The mystery story of Detective Pikachu Returns makes some bizarre and unexpectedly dark choices to get to its underwhelmingly predictable conclusion, and as a result it’s unclear who this is all for. Is it for young kids who will find the simplified puzzles about right, or adults who grew up with Pikachu and can handle the more mature themes of the second half? It’s still a cute, bubbly, animated adventure with humor, unique pokemon to meet, a

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

What’s new in NHL 24 shows a lot of promise. The Exhaust Engine introduces satisfying mechanics that make games feel more intense, though refinement to its balance is needed to keep the defensive team competitive. The improved checking system and inclusion of HUT Moments are significant features as well. However, most of the returning game modes remain nearly untouched from the last couple of years and the introduction of a battle pass, along with some annoyingly long wait times to get into games, make it harder to cheer for.

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

Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s return to the stealthy style that launched this series doesn’t do everything right, but everything it does feels like it was done with purpose. This means a shorter game with a smaller map, fewer collectibles, smaller scope in combat, and a limited selection of gear to play with – all of which I found refreshing relative to the arguably bloated scale of 100-hour games like Odyssey and Valhalla. It also means an overly simplistic plot with mostly forgettable characters, but what the story lacks in depth it makes up for with its straightforward quest progression and fast pacing. Though there's no big standout “wow” moment, Baghdad is a beautiful location in its own right, and the world’s detail is focused inward, making every alley and hovel feel well traveled and full of detail and history. I’d recommend Mirage to anyone who’s lapsed on Assassin’s Creed, as its back-to-basics approach is a successful first step in returning the feeling that the earlier industry-defining games gave me so long ago.

• PC
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

Wargroove 2 is a lot bigger, even if its tactical combat isn’t much better to match – but with how good the original Wargroove was already, that’s forgivable. The story of its three campaigns isn’t as cohesive as its predecessor and there aren’t many truly new gameplay features in the campaign levels themselves, but its Advance Wars-style tactical combat once again manages to make the hours fly by.A satisfyingly challenging new roguelike mode also provides a new way to play that could have practically been a whole game of its own. It’s a familiar package even with that mode, but if you loved the original then Wargroove 2 provides a whole lot more of what made it so great.

• XSX/S
• PC
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

After six long years, Forza Motorsport is off the lift and back in our lives. It looks great, feels great, sounds great, and it’s brought with it the most impressive multiplayer we’ve seen in the series so far. With 500 cars and 20 track locations it’s hardly a small start but, now positioned as a platform, Forza Motorsport has the potential to expand into a seriously rich racing destination over the coming years. If Flight Simulator on four wheels is the plan, I’m here for it. First on the list of improvements Turn 10 should focus on is revamping the new RPG-inspired upgrade system that turns progression into an unnecessarily long road ahead of each individual car, and maybe bringing back the joys of split-screen multiplayer racing to complement the excellent online modes.

• PC
• XSX/S
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

The Lamplighters League takes proven concepts from other tactics games and puts them together into a novel blend. It takes an unfortunate amount of time to get going, but once it does the tight, meaningful strategic layer ensures that every mission, no matter how banal, matters to your overall campaign. The superb enemy and hero design gives you great stuff to work with as you use real-time stealth takedowns to prepare for tactical fights. Sure, sometimes the partially procedurally generated maps throw up a frustrating scenario, or an ability works a bit weird, but I was more than happy to take those in stride in order to undertake a globetrotting pulp adventure in such an interesting and engaging world.

• PC
• SWITCH
• XONE
• XSX/S
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

Cocoon is a breathtaking puzzle-platformer that borders on psychedelic. Building on what made Inside designer Jeppe Carlsen's previous work stand out, Cocoon not only presents a mind-bending journey through the cosmos via fascinating worlds-within-worlds puzzle mechanics that beg you to delve another layer deeper, but an interesting take on the repetition of work, life, and being part of a "bigger picture." With a relatively short playtime and some well-hidden collectibles that make it worth replaying, Cocoon is a must-play for fans of Limbo or Inside, or anyone looking for a new puzzle adventure to play and then sit down and think about for a while.

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

If you were hoping for a dramatic reinvention of EA’s soccer sim to go along with ditching the FIFA name, EA Sports FC 24 is not that. If you’ve played FIFA, you know exactly what kind of incremental improvements and longstanding problems with AI to expect this year. New mechanics like Evolutions show that EA has a general grasp of how to improve its RPG elements, even if it’s only currently for Ultimate Team where you have to put up with all of the dreaded microtransactions. Elsewhere, Volta mode is still a lot of fun with a full team of friends thanks in part to its unique arenas, while the Career Modes once again suffer from the same lack of care they’ve been missing for years, with the added annoyance of some ill-conceived RNG-based objectives this time. All told, it might have a new name, but EA Sports FC 24 is just about the same, frustrating but beautiful game.

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

Last year, I said in my review of Cyberpunk Edgerunners that CDPR now has a blueprint for where to go with Cyberpunk 2077, and Phantom Liberty shows the studio already had exactly that in mind. Between a more sophisticated level of storytelling with excellent performances, smarter insights on the cyberpunk genre and its dystopian themes, and landing on top of a much-improved gameplay experience thanks to its fresh 2.0 update, Phantom Liberty marks a new chapter for Cyberpunk 2077 and is finally close to what I’d hoped it would be when I first sat down to play three years ago.

• PC
• 5 / 10
• États-Unis

Mineko’s Night Market is an adorable little sim that could’ve been cozy, but is mostly just boring chores that don’t reward you in the kinds of satisfying ways we see in other popular games in this relaxed genre. After putting you to work, it doesn’t let up, trapping you in a grind of gathering resources and making crafts for lifeless NPCs. Beyond some purring cats, gorgeous artwork, and a handful of legitimately funny bits, it doesn’t provide anything to make all your work worth it.

• PC
• 4 / 10
• États-Unis

We haven’t quite been waiting 100 years for an Avatar game that lives up to the potential of the show, but it’s certainly beginning to feel that way after playing Avatar: The Last Airbender - Quest for Balance. This half-baked and wildly inconsistent retelling of the excellent TV series shows the promise of what an Avatar game could maybe be, but a baffling choice of which scenes to highlight, a clunky camera and combat, hilarious balance problems, and an overreliance on middling block puzzles and boring fetch quests leaves our search for the real Avatar still desperately out of luck. With more Avatar shows and movies on the way, it’s just downright odd how Quest for Balance has managed to arrive at this point in time as both an unsatisfying entry point for newcomers and a poor way to revisit it for dedicated fans.

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

Payday 3 is a solid step forward for my favorite heist simulator franchise, even though that step is a lot smaller than I’d hoped due to a lack of content and the unsurprising but still majorly annoying bugs and performance issues. The awesome combat, greatly improved AI, and especially the stealth options are so massive they alone justify this as a full sequel, and the new and improved heists with clear phases to navigate them are absolutely fantastic. I just wish there was more loot in the proverbial vault at the outset, and that Starbreeze would have used its years of experience in order to ensure this was a more robust and far more stable launch. I’m confident Payday 3 could become the sequel we all deserve with a year or two of updates – for now, it’s a nice start.

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

With smooth online multiplayer, a handful of mostly distinct maps, and downright adorable characters, Party Animals delivers a fun party game that brings cuddly, chaotic fun where it counts the most. The intentionally wobbly controls take a moment to get used to, but once you do it’s wonderfully satisfying to land a punch and send another player flying into an environmental hazard for a KO. It does commit an all-too-common cardinal sin for contemporary multiplayer games in making local play less enjoyable than going online, but all three main modes are a good time, especially in a full lobby of eight players.

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

Lies of P might not branch out particularly far from its soulslike inspiration, but like a marionette controlled by a skilled puppet master, it plays the part extremely well in a wonderfully dark fantasy world. It must be said that its uneven difficulty didn’t always make me feel like an underdog, especially when playing as a brawny, overpowered version of Pinocchio with a massive weapon, and combat pigeonholed me into a specific playstyle while the levels are less open and twisting than most. But with an awesome weapon crafting system, some really memorable boss fights, and one of the better stories we’ve seen in this genre, I can enthusiastically recommend you spend your time hanging out with Gepetto and friends. If you’ve been waiting for a Bloodborne remaster or sequel that may never come, Lies of P is the next best thing.

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

Mortal Kombat 1 is another great entry in this legendary series, but it’s not one without issues. The new Kameo system is excellent, there are smart changes to the fighting mechanics that address many of the fundamental issues that cropped up over Mortal Kombat 11’s life, and predictably, the fantastic single-player story mode that continues to be the gold standard of the genre. But certain elements of online play are starting to feel dated, and Invasions mode is not nearly engaging enough to hold my attention for as long as is needed to unlock a majority of the goodies hidden behind its many treasure chests and gimmicky battles. Still, Mortal Kombat 1 marks a new beginning for the franchise, and it’s a very exciting launching point for the next era.

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

It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. LEGO has Mega Bloks. E.T. has Mac and Me. Now Forza Horizon has The Crew Motorfest. To be fair, Motorfest is a robust racer with a confident sense of style, a quality arcade handling model, and a long list of generally well-planned events right out of the box. However, the shift to a smaller map has seen it lose a part of its old identity, boats and aircraft feel like they’ve been sidelined, and some of its event Playlists work a lot better than others. Ultimately, The Crew Motorfest is a little more Ice Ice Baby and a little less Under Pressure. It’s a catchy enough copy, but it ain’t exactly back with a brand new invention.

• PS5
• 6 / 10
• États-Unis

Firewall Ultra simultaneously feels like two steps forward and two steps backward. It somehow does just as much right – and wrong – as Firewall: Zero Hour, a VR game that is now over five years old. While its shooting and tactical teamwork feel, look, and sound better than ever, its content is limited and it’s filled with questionable uses of new tech like eye tracking. What it all adds up to is a decent competitive multiplayer shooter that just happens to be in VR, but its awkward controls are a shot in the foot rather than the shot in the arm that the PlayStation VR2 desperately needed.

• PC
• XSX/S
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

It’s never a great sign when someone recommends a game on the grounds that it gets good after more than a dozen hours, but that’s very much the kind of game Starfield is, and I do recommend it. There are a lot of forces working against it, and the combination of disjointed space travel, nonexistent maps, aggravating inventory management, and a slow rollout of essential abilities very nearly did it in. It was the joys piloting a custom spaceship into and out of all sorts of morally ambiguous situations in a rich sci-fi universe that eventually pulled it out of a nosedive. I’m glad that I powered through the early hours, because its interstellar mystery story pays off and, once the ball got rolling, combat on foot and in space gradually became good enough that its momentum carried me into New Game+ after I’d finished the main story after around 60 hours. Like Skryim and Fallout 4 before it, there’s still an immense amount of quality roleplaying quests and interesting NPCs out there, waiting to be stumbled across, and the pull to seek it out is strong.