IGN

• SWITCH
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

Somehow, Donkey Kong Country Returns returned (again), but Nintendo’s third full release of this 2010 Wii platformer is almost as fresh and fun today as it was 15 years ago. DK’s satisfying, weighty movement paves the way for a challenging, momentum-based platformer that demands more skill and precision than the average Nintendo game. But it stays fun rather than frustrating thanks to incredibly impressive level design that explores every clever idea to the fullest and a ton of hidden collectibles worth tracking down. As a remaster specifically, it’s no more than a passable update, with graphics that can only really be described as “good enough” and some outdated elements that could have used more modern touches, like a lack of checkpoints during boss fights and a few obnoxious sections full of one-hit kill obstacles. But Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is still a competent update and easily the best way to play one of the greatest 2D platformers Nintendo has released this century.

• PC
• PS5
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

Alien: Rogue Incursion is a faithful and entertaining stab at bringing Alien to virtual reality. The excellent story, spot-on Alien environments, and creepy Xenomorphs keep the horrifying times going throughout its eight-hour duration, even when repetitive combat, predictable AI, and the odd bug here and there make it clear this is the first attempt that it is. But while there’s plenty of room for this budding series to grow, I can already happily recommend Rogue Incursion as a strong proof of concept to Alien fans and newcomers alike – one that’s left me eagerly awaiting part two.

• PS5
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind nails the look and feel of both Power Rangers and the classic arcade games it’s drawing inspiration from. While the Super Scaler levels can be a bit of a mixed bag, they sing when they work, and they’re still only manageably frustrating when they don’t. Everything else, though, rules — the gorgeous sprite work, bumping soundtrack, rock-solid beat ‘em up gameplay, in-jokes for fans, and other little touches like playable in-universe arcade games. And while nostalgia will certainly enhance the experience for some, you don’t have to know your Green Ranger from your Black Ranger to enjoy it. It might even give you an itch to revisit the classic games, or give the original television series a watch. You may not be able to go down to your local arcade anymore, but if Rita’s Rewind is any indication, you can always go back in time. Just pack some spandex.

• PC
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle nails nearly everything about the best parts of the storied franchise upon which it’s based, from the title card and location fonts to Harrison Ford’s finger waggle, but its successes go way beyond its faithfulness to the finer points of the films. With a host of gorgeous and lavishly detailed levels, satisfying combat hinged on jawbreaking haymakers, and a focus on slow-paced exploration, platforming, and puzzle solving (interspersed with a handful of high-voltage action scenes), The Great Circle is an irresistible and immersive global treasure hunt for Indy fans who’ve felt underserved by the likes of The Dial of Destiny and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Moreover, it sets itself apart from this decade’s increasingly homogenised third-person action games by opting for a classic first-person perspective inspired by the likes of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. If you butt your head against its generally basic stealth systems, cracks will show – but when played as intended, The Great Circle immediately ranks amongst the best Indiana Jones games ever and its story is closer to Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade than anything that’s come after. Some pundits may claim it belongs in a museum, but museums are for dusty old relics you shouldn’t ever touch. The Great Circle doesn’t belong in a museum; it belongs on your hard drive where you can play the heck out of it.

• PC
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

When it’s firing on all cylinders, STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a rare treat that scratches the itch left behind by those older PC games, where the onus was on you to figure out how to survive and thrive in an unforgiving place that doesn’t care if you live or die. It's refreshing, brutal, and a masterclass in creating a brooding atmosphere that I loved basking in, bringing new life to a place as tragic and desolate as The Zone. Once the main quest gained momentum, the choices I made and the work required to reach the end left me invested in a suspenseful story that builds on the ambitions of its predecessors. There are, however, foundational problems that are hard to ignore, like bizarre enemy behavior in combat and the many bugs and performance issues that persist after launch. But for those with the patience and determination required for a massive, intentionally inelegant shooter, those are inconveniences worth enduring; STALKER 2 is a gripping exploration of Chornobyl, and there’s just nothing like it.

• PC
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

We have hit cruising altitude. You can safely unbuckle your seatbelts and move freely about the cabin. I was extremely skeptical as to whether or not Asobo could capture the lightning in a bottle of 2020’s Microsoft Flight Simulator again – but after Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 took the time to clean up its launch problems and I really got to know its new features, I am once again astonished. It's more than just simulating the experience of flying: you can use it to learn the technical side of how pilots actually fly planes, including the stuff that doesn't involve ailerons and elevators and trim thanks to the EFB and Flight Planner. When I encounter some new term I don't understand, all it does is make me want to learn more so I can fly virtual airplanes on a digital twin of the planet Earth with as much realism as is possible. It's not flawless, with some lingering problems in those new systems and tutorials that are lacking (or worse, nonexistent, making Google a constant companion). But I am still in awe of what's here, and I cannot wait to spend hundreds of hours exploring it.

• PS5
• 7 / 10
• États-Unis

Lego Horizon Adventures reimagines Horizon Zero Dawn with a playful Lego twist, simplifying the story while keeping the heart of its key moments and characters. Combat feels great and offers plenty of difficulty options for players of all skill levels. While the randomness of gadgets and rare weapons can be an annoyance, especially when trying to complete certain challenges, it’s cute that the use-what-you-can-find nature of Horizon has been embraced. There are also plenty of customization options for your characters and the hub town, which was enjoyable as I strived to make Mother's Heart my own. Couple that with visually impressive levels full of excellent music but disappointingly predictable level design and a lack of extras and I ultimately found myself having fun with Lego Horizon Adventures even if I was left wanting more.

• SWITCH
• 5 / 10
• États-Unis

Mario & Luigi: Brothership is an incredibly disappointing return for an RPG series I’ve always loved. Apart from the combat, it fundamentally misunderstands its own past success, and completely fumbles Luigi’s role in puzzle-solving and exploration by making him more of a pain than a partner. The story is simplistic and unoriginal, its attempts at humor fall flat, and the overly chatty writing holds your hand to a ridiculous degree. It’s not a total disaster, as the excellent, flashy turn-based battles are some of the best this series has ever had – but even those somehow manage to wear thin as the repetitive final act crawls across the finish line of this roughly 34-hour campaign, which suffers from surprisingly bad performance issues nearly the entire time. The Switch has been home to many triumphant revivals for Nintendo, but the Mario & Luigi series has sadly missed the boat.

• PS5
• 5 / 10
• États-Unis

Slitterhead features some interesting body-swapping exploration and a unique blood-based battle system, but it never fully capitalises on either of them due to its small handful of repeated level settings and largely indistinguishable enemy encounters. Its story is disappointingly primitive in its presentation, and its time-looping structure only really serves as a feeble attempt to mask the fact that it takes about one hour’s worth of story mission ideas and repeats them incessantly across its 13-hour duration. Like a bloody blade worn down by a few too many battles, Slitterhead grows increasingly dull over time and ultimately just doesn’t cut it.

• PC
• XSX/S
• PS5
• 3 / 10
• États-Unis

While Empire of the Ants’s nearly photo-realistic world looks incredible at first glance, its boring and annoying real-time strategy campaign is the ant-ithesis of that. Combat missions are mostly trivially easy because the AI doesn’t seem to understand crucial mechanics, and those that aren’t are obnoxious because you can’t save mid-mission to replay the tough parts without trudging through the easy setup; Meanwhile, all of the non-combat missions are tedious searches for needles in haystacks and the story fails to make ant politics intriguing. It’s easily the worst single-player campaign I’ve played in years.

• PC
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

Planet Coaster 2 is even better at all of the things its predecessor was good at. It's a detailer's dream, with a colossal variety of rides, scenery, terrain tools, and sometimes terrifyingly vast options for customization. It's also bad at more or less all of the things the last one was bad at, though, as it still fails to make the financial side of running a park, or even staff management, challenging or enjoyable. But the addition of water attractions alone is enough reason to dive in even if you have hundreds of hours sunk into the first Planet Coaster. All told, it's the best sim of its type your money can buy.

• PC
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

From its lively, cartoonish sprites to its energetic soundtrack, Metal Slug Tactics is a meticulously crafted ode to the arcade classic that never gets lost blindly chasing its adoration for the series without understanding what makes Metal Slug great. Instead, it introduces a handful of distinct innovations to the tactics genre that masterfully meld Metal Slug’s action-packed platforming and shooting onto a tactics grid. Even though it’s hampered by some frustrating bugs, I’m still having plenty of fun with each run as I experiment with new strategies and team compositions.

• PC
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

Dragon Age: The Veilguard refreshes and reinvigorates a storied series that stumbled through its middle years, and leaves no doubt that it deserves its place in the RPG pantheon. The next Mass Effect is going to have a very tough act to follow, which is not something I ever imagined I'd be saying before I got swept away on this adventure. Enjoyable action combat, a fantastic cast of allies with sweeping story arcs all their own, top-notch cinematics, and moving, nuanced character writing are the wings on which this triumphant dragon soars, pulling out all the stops in a whirlwind tour of Northern Thedas and capping it with a terrific finale that’s built on memorably tough choices and consequences. If we never get another Dragon Age, at least it got to go out on a high note.

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

After several attempts to recapture what made the original Life is Strange so enduring, developer Deck Nine Games really knocked it out of the park with Life is Strange: Double Exposure. This is a worthy sequel to a game that captured the hearts and minds of millions of people way back in 2015, myself included. The writing is great, the music is excellent, the cinematography and acting are top-notch, and Max’s new powers are a fun and intuitive fit for its murder mystery structure.

• PS5
• 9 / 10
• États-Unis

Sonic X Shadow Generations takes an already excellent game and spring jumps it to new heights at a blistering pace by doubling up the campaign length with creative level design, fantastic bosses, plenty of collectibles, and an appreciable graphical upgrade. While the brand-new Shadow content isn't necessarily long on its own, it adds a nice change of pace to the collection of all-time great Sonic stages Generations already contained, and there’s an exciting new story that’s filled in as you explore the overworld for collectibles, activities, and challenges. This bulked-up remaster soars far and above previous enhanced versions we've gotten in the Sonic franchise, and hopefully will be the gold standard Sega holds itself to when it decides to bring back other Sonic games from the past.

• PC
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

The Lake House DLC is another spectacular and spooky slice of Alan Wake II action. It introduces some fantastic new supporting characters to the Remedy Connected Universe, as well as a terrifying new enemy type to overcome and some wonderfully eerie environments to explore. The challenge of its puzzles may be light, but its combat is still chillingly dark even despite the fact it’s not hugely different from that of the main game, and scouring for the many notes, videos, and audio recordings littered throughout its fear-inducing facility made for a genuinely gripping investigation. Funny, frightening, and full of surprises, The Lake House DLC is a tightly paced slice of psychological horror that serves as an absorbing addendum to Alan Wake II.

• PC
• PS5
• XSX/S
• 5 / 10
• États-Unis

Setting a Metroidvania-style platforming adventure against a backdrop of building-razing beasts is certainly an intriguing idea, but unlike its towering cast of kaiju cameos, Kong: Survivor Instinct itself simply doesn’t measure up. Its story and characters are underwritten, its ravaged urban playground is eye-catching but not particularly surprising to explore, and its combat fails to evolve enough to keep the fights interesting over the course of the journey. The occasional room-rocking escape sequences do literally shake things up, but they’re few and far between and only distract from the otherwise uncomplicated platforming for short bursts at a time. Kong and his kind may hail from an alternate world hidden deep inside the Earth’s core, but the actual gameplay of Kong: Survivor Instinct is strictly one-dimensional.

• PC
• 8 / 10
• États-Unis

Batman: Arkham Shadow does an admirable job of adapting almost everything I love about the Arkham series to work in a full-fledged VR game, and it’s impressive looking for a game that’s exclusive to the standalone Meta Quest 3 headset. There are a few hitches and aggravating bugs that mean some parts don’t work quite as well as others, but its vigorous brawling, exploration, tricky puzzle solving, and stealth are all in full effect as you sneak and punch your way through Blackgate prison in a twisting undercover pursuit of a mysterious cult leader where just about everybody’s a suspect. It’s certainly smaller in scale than any full game since Arkham Asylum, but it’s far larger and more built-out than you might expect after Batman: Arkham VR, and a return to an enclosed prison setting makes it feel dense and intricate.