A delightful cat-based platforming adventure in a cyberpunk world worth exploring.
Silent protagonists are nothing new in video games, but Stray certainly pushes that concept to an interesting place. Part platformer, part traditional adventure game, this cyberpunk world full of neon-soaked robots transforms into a giant jungle gym from your perspective, which is just one foot off the ground. The concept of putting you in the paws of an average cat may be a silly one on the surface, but Stray uses that furry vehicle to tell a genuinely compelling story with some entertaining action along the way. Not all of its ideas land on their feet, but it was impossible to shake the fuzzy feeling it gave me right from the adorable opening minutes.
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
Happened as dated, per ign.com[3]: "…ling it gave me right from the adorable opening minutes. To be clear: you’re not a magic cat, not a…"
Wikipedia's Stray article gives the Unreal Engine 4 adventure infobox and describes the cat's traversal, the B-12 drone's abilities and the Zurks and Sentinels enemies.
IGN's[1] own title, "Stray, PS5's Cyberpunk Cat Game, Gets a Release Date," published June 3, 2022 - one day after Sony's own PlayStation[4] Blog announcement - corroborates the July 19, 2022 date, though the page itself could not be fetched directly.
Sony's own PlayStation Blog states "Stray will be publicly available on July 19, 2022," matching the pin's stored date exactly.
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It is still unbelievable to me that after 26 years of linear, straightforward RPGs, developer Game Freak really looked Pokémon players dead in the eye and said, “It’s fine, go wherever you want.” In the lead-up to the launch of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, I thought this claim would end up being a marketing gimmick, a little joke, something we’d all be mad about later. But from the moment I left the hallowed halls of Uva Academy, that promise has been wonderfully fulfilled, with open-world, open-ended gameplay serving as a shining beacon for the future of this beloved franchise. And yet, a finger on the cursed Mankey’s paw has curled anyway – Scarlet and Violet’s wonderfully innovative design is dramatically undermined by the numerous ways in which they feel deeply unfinished, with issues ranging from an incomplete world to massive and ubiquitous technical problems. So even though I want to celebrate how this generation reinvents and reinvigorates the world of Pokémon, I can’t without putting a great big warning label on it.
Like a sugar-crazed child working their way to the bottom of a Halloween bag full of treats, A Plague Tale: Requiem is confident that the things which made the first game great will be even more delectable in ludicrous quantities. You liked massive swarms of rats? Well, how about we increase the number of them by a degree of 1,000! You enjoyed a gruesome and harrowing journey that tested the limits of your emotional resilience? Great, let’s increase your personal suffering by 200%! This follow-up to one of my favorite action-adventure games of the previous console generation turns the dials up to 11 in practically every way, and overwhelmingly benefits from those escalations despite sometimes being a bit heavy on the nihilism. With improved stealth action mechanics, a fantastic (and deeply depressing) story, and graphics that had me gawking, A Plague Tale: Requiem is an impressive glow up that’s easily worth the immense horrors it subjected me to.
When it comes to over-the-top roleplaying games, it’s hard to beat the bonkers worlds and stories I’ve come to expect from the Xenoblade Chronicles saga. With Xenoblade Chronicles 3, massive improvements have been made to combat, quest design, and the RPG sandbox, while retaining the absurd and awesome environments, and a laser-focus on great characters and an impressive (if convoluted) story. Of course, while this third entry evolves in some key areas that make the epic journey more consistently fun than the two mainline games that came before it, it also repeats some of the same mistakes, including sloppy writing, weak bosses, and graphics that often leave something to be desired. Even so, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is already competing for the spot as my favorite iteration of this beloved series.
In the 87 hours that it took me to beat Elden Ring, I was put through an absolute wringer of emotion: Anger as I was beaten down by its toughest challenges, exhilaration when I finally overcame them, and a fair amount of sorrow for the mountains of exp I lost along the way to some of the toughest boss encounters FromSoftware has ever conceived. But more than anything else I was in near-constant awe – from the many absolutely jaw-dropping vistas, the sheer scope of an absolutely enormous world, the frequently harrowing enemies, and the way in which Elden Ring nearly always rewarded my curiosity with either an interesting encounter, a valuable reward, or something even greater. FromSoftware takes the ball that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild got rolling and runs with it, creating a fascinating and dense open world about freedom and exploration above all else, while also somehow managing to seamlessly weave a full-on Dark Souls game into the middle of it. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Elden Ring ended up as one of the most unforgettable gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
You almost have to admire the hedonism of looking at The Last of Us Remastered, which is still visually impressive eight years later, and saying, “Yeah, that looks pretty good, but we can do better.” There’s very little left to be said about the original The Last of Us, a potent, post-apocalyptic cocktail of stealth, survival, and slaughter that’s revered for its haunting storytelling in an amazingly well-crafted world. You almost certainly knew that. It’s widely lauded as one of the best games of all time and one of the few to get a 10 from IGN, but I reckon you knew that, too. In fact, it’s a game so nice they built it thrice, which is where we find ourselves with The Last of Us Part I – now the third version of Naughty Dog’s 2013 masterpiece to arrive inside a decade.
At first glance, Two Rock, Arizona is merely a backwater town occupied by little more than tumbleweed and a few rows of houses. But very little is as it first appears, and all it takes to reveal As Dusk Falls’ many layers of storytelling depth is one small, decades-spanning tragedy. And it’s all about the story, since this is a choose-your-own-adventure-style graphic novel that cleverly pulls ideas from games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead series and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Each member of this voice-acting cast of unique and interesting characters has their own, often conflicting emotional stakes that accelerate the story in seemingly hundreds of logical and intelligently connected directions. Through the powerful and often far-reaching consequences of your own actions, this small town is gradually unveiled as a powder keg full of secrets, vices, and familial bonds that run far deeper than any outsider is initially led to expect.
Like many of developer Supermassive’s previous games, The Quarry is clearly made both by and for people who love horror movies. From the start, it slowly builds tension and atmosphere, getting you invested by constantly asking you to make small decisions that will guide its teenage cast of potential murder victims. By the time the blood started flying, every choice felt like one more step in a rolling disaster, and that made it nearly impossible to put down. When I went back to replay it again, however, it was impossible to ignore just how non-interactive much of The Quarry actually is. As a spiritual sequel to Until Dawn, it's a better movie, but a worse game.
You follow the story of nine camp counselors who get stuck in the woods for one more night at the end of the summer, with nothing to do but throw one last party before they go back to their lives. There's something stalking them from the treeline (because of course there is) and your choices determine which, if any, of the counselors will be able to survive the night. This setup layers three fairly textbook horror plots on top of each other as you progress, but you can tell that Supermassive Games had a lot of fun figuring out how to connect them together. When you play, you may think you're in one type of horror movie, but you're often in another.
I hold the Bayonetta series’ combat in such high esteem that I’d consider it in the top five or so combat systems of all time, right next to the Devil May Cry, God of War, Ninja Gaiden, and Batman Arkham games. It’s just incredible to look at, feels equally amazing to play, and is jam packed with opportunities for style and creativity thanks to the wide assortment of wild weapons at your disposal. Bayonetta 3 just further cements its legacy, strutting out with a surprising sequel in that it actually takes a lot of risks with changing up its established formula in an effort to revitalize a combat system that only slightly evolved between the first two games. Fortunately those risks pay off. Bayonetta 3 is an invigorated sequel with fresh new ideas that embolden its 13-year-old combat system, an impressive amount of variety throughout its 10 to 12-hour campaign, and more of that trademark sexy Bayonetta style that makes the series one of a kind.
From the very first punch, Sifu is utterly uncompromising in its design. Absolver developer Sloclap’s latest martial arts beat-em-up is bold, its combat exquisite, its animation top-notch, its music outstanding, and its story – while very simple – is poignant and elegantly told. It’s also unforgiving and unapologetic, with pockets of frustrating moments during which I was certainly not in my happy place. But by the end, Sifu offered me a nearly unparalleled sense of mastery and accomplishment, and I can’t imagine that I would’ve enjoyed it half as much if it pulled its punches.
Like many, I’ve been waiting for a truly excellent Harry Potter game since I was in the third grade. In that time, we’ve gotten some respectable LEGO Potter games, an underwhelming EA Sports Quidditch game for some reason, and even suffered through the fevered nightmare that is Harry Potter Kinect. But none of these has come close to fulfilling that fantasy of receiving a Hogwarts admission letter that opens the door to a secret world. With Hogwarts Legacy, I’m happy to say that we finally got a Harry Potter game that captures some of that magic. Its open world map absolutely nails the vibe of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it has spellcasting combat that’s stupefyingly good, the characters that inhabit it are charming and unforgettable, and it is positively brimming with countless diversions to soak up dozens of hours of your time. It may not be the most impressive technical achievement and it is certainly cursed with a lack of enemy variety, but none of Hogwarts Legacy’s issues can cast a Descendo charm on this triumphant visit to the Wizarding World.
2022 was a stacked year that featured indie darlings (Immortality), blockbusters (God of War Ragnarok), and smaller, surprise hits (Marvel Snap), so it shouldn't be a shock that a game or two slipped under your radar. But the biggest blink-and-you-miss-it release might be late November's Need for Speed Unbound, the latest entry in EA’s long-running street racing series. With Criterion Games (of Burnout fame) at the helm, Unbound had the potential to be one of the best racing games of the year—or a return to series form after a few missteps. But while aesthetically pleasing and featuring cross-platform play with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, the $69.99 PC game lacks satisfactory car handling and a thriving, in-game world.
