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

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

On Rainbow Six Siege

“By excising a narrative (Siege is stuck almost entirely online) UbiSoft insists they’re avoiding politicization. Instead, it’s the opposite. They’ve turned suburban shootouts nameless and faceless. Terrorists wear masks so they cannot be identified. Victims are as ignored as they are in mainstream media. Brief video interstitial segments note “orders and protocols are irrelevant,” a powerful line which in five words frames much of American police saga.”

Read my full review of Rainbow Six Siege on Medium

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (PS4) Review

“This cross-section of the Templar/Assassin war depicts Victorian times as cruel. Story points harshly defame the capitalists within. The villains, dressed in luxurious garb and softly reciting their educated vocabularies, are the equivalent of Wall Street hustlers as seen by Bernie Sanders. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate has the modern dividing lines of good/evil. One side is Donald Trump, the other Sanders. Fox News versus MSNBC.”

Read my full review of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate at GameSkinny

Toy Soldiers: War Chest Review

“Under new publisher UbiSoft, War Chest has bloated itself into a gross anti-consumer platform which, in its own way, does capture the essence of being a child. With War Chest’s cover art plastering images of He-Man and G.I. Joe, playing as those characters requires a separate DLC purchase. They’re $5. Each. While their worlds/levels are playable and their theme songs blare, controlling those ’80s era legacies is considered a post-purchase, paid privilege. Toy Soldiers teaches war games as much as it does how corporations design their toy sales and marketing to exploit demographics.”

Read my full review of Toy Soldiers: War Chest at GameSkinny

The Crew (PS4) Review

“The Crew only exists because the current holiday release season had an empty reservoir calling for a checkpoint racer. (EA’s Need for Speed is on vacation.) In steps this catatonic, repetitive driving excursion, which is Ubisoft’s attempt at the car-bound fetish fantasy where the planet bows to the whims of wheels and the throbbing power of engines. Exhaust is their lone societal contribution. It’s disgustingly masculine, and powered not by fuel, but impotent testosterone. The egotism is record-setting, and this childish turf-war conflict is a menace.”

Read my full review of The Crew at GameSkinny

Far Cry 4 (PS4) Review

“Far Cry 4 never stops. That’s part of its problem. Surrounded by potential to break free from familiar genre tropes and explore rarely seen religious ethnicity, it reaches for guns. Quickly. Articulated ideas are almost extinct in this market sector. Instead of delivering perspective, Far Cry 4 pushes icons. Go here, do this, buy things, level up, go here again. Those endless parading icons and arrows and map objectives never cease, caught in a constant brawl to sell available content whether there is need for it or not.“

Read my full Far Cry 4 review at GameSkinny

Watch Dogs (PS4) Review

“This is instantaneous banality, where the reach of video monitoring and apps plays toward naivety. Watch Dogs matches the forced commotion of prime time television, flipping computer driven mainstream buzz words like hack, mainframes, and servers in wild concoctions as remove any pretense of legitimacy. Whizzes slam on keyboards with the pace of a courtroom recorder to indulge in virus battles, and Pearce taps his phone to burst water mains. Were any of this draped by focused narrative or in considerate allegory, it would lean purposeful. Instead, Watch Dogs exits to let Pearce kill.”

Read my full review of Watch Dogs at Blogcritics

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (Xbox 360) Review

“Gunslinger’s world view is fantastical, an animated and bulky shooting gallery fixated on explosive blood spreads, created from unyielding rifle rounds. Call of Juarez, jittery and grubby as a mainstream, competitive franchise, has found its habitat. Unclenched from an unsteady gait of retail expectations, Gunslinger births a controlled, modern day light gun shooter, sans plastic peripherals.”

Read my full review of Call of Juarez: Gunslinger at Classic Game Room

Rayman Legends (Xbox 360) Review

“In many ways, Rayman has won. South France’s Ubisoft Montpellier has catapulted a creation who lied dormant (or superseded by manic Rabbids) into the forefront of this once Nintendo dominated province. European developed platformers have traditionally been locked to lethargic motions meant for a populace groomed on simpleton home computers. Legends, even as a sequel, is a revelation to those comatose, barrier driven character runs.”

Read my full Rayman Legends review at Classic Game Room