Author: David Carter

I grew up watching a lot of monster-taming TV series, including Digimon, like many other youngsters from the 1990s. Even though George, then eight years old, loved Digimon World 3 on the PlayStation 2, it was Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth (2015) and Hacker’s Memory (2017) that rekindled my interest in the series. Playing it brought back memories, and its distinct evolution mechanisms set it apart from Pokémon’s ubiquitous dominance in the genre. Ten years later, Digimon Story Time Stranger expands on a similar framework, but this time it features a much more daring plot that succeeds and a cast of…

Frontier’s prehistoric series always seemed like a younger sibling to their other park-builders, Planet Zoo and Planet Coaster, even though I’ve spent countless hours creating my ideal dinosaur park in Jurassic World Evolution 2. Many characteristics that were absent from the first two Evolution entries are present in those two games. The fact that Jurassic World Evolution 3 now seemed like a full-fledged member of the Frontier flock, along with the really extensive customization and personalization elements I’ve grown accustomed to from the studio, was what most delighted me when I got to play it. Yes, and the baby dinosaurs…

Sequels offer the chance to either improve on an earlier work and push the envelope, or to take what was already excellent and present it with greater concentration. Developer Sucker Punch widely favored the latter strategy in Ghost of Yotei, which led to more engrossing open-world gameplay and incredibly striking visuals throughout. It stays quite close to 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima overall and doesn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel. Still, I don’t mind if that means it can add important elements and provide a more succinct encapsulation of the samurai fantasy that was initially promised. Few games in recent memory…

The ship was burning. While I fought half a dozen Legion vessels, my crewmates were off-ship, taking the neighboring defense cannons to support our fleet. I wasn’t sure how long I could stay by myself, but the fire would get me if they didn’t. After locking in cruise control and pointing our C-3 Catamaran’s bow away from the battle, I exited the pilot’s seat and turned to see that the majority of the top level was on fire. Not much better were the lower decks. I snatched up the nearest extinguisher and ran across the ship to put out the…

Jurassic World Evolution 3 will see the arrival of the Megalodon. One of the largest shark species ever found, the Megalodon lived in prehistoric oceans around 20 million years ago. It was up to 15 meters long, weighed up to 50 tons, and had — gulp — more than 270 teeth. Naturally, the Megalodon is more familiar to you as The Meg, the massive shark that Jason Statham battles in the 2018 blockbuster movie. “Frontier hinted that visitors will naturally be attracted to lagoons where the Megalodon resides, requiring vast waters to showcase its striking silhouette. By adding a shark…

There are two types of Assassin’s Creed expansions: simple sequels that build on the main game’s drama and intrigue, or utterly ridiculous fantasy games that completely upend everything by bringing you to Asgard or introducing unicorns. Claws of Awaji, Shadows’ expansion, is nearly entirely focused on the former. A completely new weapon type gives Naoe some new fighting skills, and the overall tenseness and hustle of exploration is increased because foes are much more deadly and driven to battle you. The simple journey is lacking in revelation and doesn’t establish a strong case for its own existence, and the land…

It doesn’t appear to have been under any pressure, even if the entire world was waiting for Hollow Knight: Silksong’s cocoon to eventually burst. As a brilliant continuation of the original Hollow Knight and a superb game in its own right, this superb follow-up to an all-time classic has more than met my high expectations. While staying true to the formula that made its predecessor so remarkable, it makes significant and little changes to almost every aspect of it. Silksong is unreservedly difficult, incredibly imaginative, and remarkably reflective in both its beautiful setting and the tales it tells. Even though…

The long-running NBA 2K series from Visual Concepts closely resembles the lives of the players it strives to imitate. There are instances when a hotshot rookie shows promise despite performing poorly in back-to-back games. For others, it’s more akin to a cunning veteran closing in on retirement—we catch a glimmer of potential. For better or worse, that’s what keeps me returning year after year. Now, if I claimed I wasn’t afraid of being disappointed again, I would be lying. However, NBA 2K26 did not let me down this year, in contrast to the heartbreakingly mediocre Phoenix Suns, whom I obstinately…

Lost Soul Aside is a fun character action game, despite its jumbled, misdirected jumble of disparate, badly realized ideas that alternately lay up rakes for itself to step on. I’ve enjoyed battles and boss fights, but far too frequently in between, I’ve had to endure a monotonous plot with unmemorable characters, awkward platforming in the levels, and puzzles that would make the shape-matching tasks you’d give a toddler seem easy, all wrapped up in a misleadingly ostentatious package. In games, where concepts and advancements conflate craft, technology, business, and art, originality is ephemeral. This is particularly true in the expanding…

For more than 15 years, my love for looter shooters has been blazing brightly, and Borderlands was the spark that ignited the fire. Gearbox demonstrates that it still knows how to deliver the boom with Borderlands 4. It seemed like this franchise had started to lag in the genre it created after Borderlands 3 fizzled out a little, but 2025’s Borderlands surprised us once more by abandoning segmented sections and adopting an honest-to-goodness open world. The story takes a refreshingly grounded approach that works; the movement is drastically improved, making it one of the most immersive first-person shooters available, and…