The Division 2 Review

“Division 2” is the worst of ‘stand your ground’ laws and ‘good guy with a gun’ beliefs. Enemies wander the streets, guns outstretched sideways as they blindly fire like Hollywood’s abysmal thug stereotypes. There’s no narrative context for their actions, or why all of them willingly die for their cause – or what their cause actually is. They just hate innocents. That makes them easy villains to conservative eyes. They’re bad guys, the lot of them, and that’s all anyone needs to know. “The Division 2” may as well be Carlson’s primetime lead.”

Read my full review of The Division 2 at Variety

NBA 2K18 Review

“There’s an authenticity in rotating courtside banners and between-play chatter by the announcers, changing as the year moves on with new sponsors cycling in. The insistence on using Virtual Currency (VC) for everything compounds the issue, though. NBA 2K18 wants you to drink Gatorade, but it’s also interested in getting you to spend more real money in the game.”

Read my full review of NBA 2K18 at Polygon

NHL 18 Review

“EA’s NHL remains the best of the publisher’s sports franchises in terms of its simulation, even as its slow pace of growth becomes increasingly hard to ignore. FIFA’s authenticity fluctuates, Madden plays safe, and NBA Live comes and goes. NHL stays consistent. Frustrating as off-the-puck AI can be (players too frequently seem blind when the puck is loose), in motion, it’s hockey bliss. It’s also apparent that a lack of updates and changes year-over-year is beginning to stagnate things.”

Read my full review of NHL 18 at Polygon

Yonder Review

“Yonder comes from Australian studio Prideful Sloth games. For the developer of Yonder, there’s no better name to represent their output. Yonder won’t pressure anyone when wandering the landscapes of Gemea. Without leveling, without health, without time restrictions, everything you do is free of confinement. Yonder is, plainly, a game of almost nothing where you need do nothing.”

Read my full review of Yonder at Polygon.

Sniper Elite 4 Review

“The main hook, that perverse, commercialized violence (particularly in such numbers), can’t sustain Sniper Elite 4 either. Seeing a skull rupture, brain jiggle, and fragments of each scatter with bullet impact rapidly turns repetitive. Larger scaled stage design only means more enemies and more of this one-off gimmick.”

Read my full Sniper Elite 4 review at Polygon

NBA 2K17 Review

“As great as MyPark and Pro-Am are in theory, both modes’ leaderboards are too full of players that appear to have paid their way upward. Regardless of where MyCareer gameplay happens, the slog of leveling eases with NBA 2K17’s Virtual Currency, which can be bought in amounts that range from $2 to $100. While gameplay skill factors in, high player ratings carry obvious and substantial impact, with less urgency to improve for higher VC payouts. Never mind how this comes at odds with the hard work and success theme of Aaron Covington’s story.”

Read my full NBA 2K17 review at Polygon

On Nathan Drake and Uncharted 4

There’s a normal life to consider. This is where Drake resides during his time off. Reaching near death in the deserts of Uncharted 3 must have slowed his adventurous sense, forcing him to reconsider what matters. He now dives for treasure as part of a salvage company. A video game protagonist with a playable day job—how odd. The Mario Bros. may be plumbers, but they’ve never unclogged a residential toilet in-game.

Read my full feature on Uncharted 4 on Playboy

On MLB: The Show 16 and Chaos

“Sony’s San Diego Studio has been working on The Show since 2006; they’ve spent years building up these details. Their organic approach to sports simulations is unparalleled, enough to oust their rival 2K Sports from the world baseball games entirely as of 2013. San Diego Studio’s baseball has matured into an unpredictable, dicey, and irregular sim. Otherwise, this wouldn’t be baseball. 2K couldn’t catch up, so they dropped out.”

Read my feature on MLB: The Show 16 via Playboy

The Division (PS4) Review

“A vocal computer AI calls out bad people as targets. Markers aim predominantly at people in hoodies, UbiSoft socially blind to the real world stigmas they’re perpetuating. Then they make The Division’s government-led vigilantes equally villainous. Men in hoodies are killed for looting dead bodies; Division members loot their victim’s corpses. No one comments on the ethical paradox.”

Read my full review of The Division at Review ‘Em All

Until Dawn (PS4) Review

“At worst, Until Dawn does not know what it wants. There’s the main killer, the flamethrower madman, ghostly activities, pasty clawed creatures, and a twist equivalent to an implausible Scooby-Doo episode. To bunch the sub-genres as a catch-all, Until Dawn will push an uncalled for, once dormant mental health trope. Chapters rummage through the remains of a crumbling 50’s era psychiatric hospital, turning a character into a rambling, googly-eyed nut tripping on supposed after-effects of PTSD. It would be out of place as a straight-jacketed caricature in the 1940s let alone 2015.”

Read my full review of Until Dawn at GameSkinny