Many aspects of The Show remain largely unchanged from the previous iteration. Most of the core mechanics of hitting, pitching, and fielding remain more or less the same. This isn’t a complaint, mind you. These core mechanics were already polished to a fine shine in the last game, and they remain so here. The learning curve isn’t too steep, and the game allows you to change the difficulty for each of the three individually, and on the fly during matches. The ability to set variable difficulty, meanwhile, allows the game to get progressively easier or harder as your skill changes.

The main showcase mode, Road to the Show, remains more or less unchanged from last year’s game. Strangely enough, though, it chooses to omit the actual process of trying out for teams. Instead, you start out having already been drafted, and get to choose which team you want to have been chosen for. It’s nice to get the option to pick, but the implementation is a bit clunky. It’s delivered through in-game dialog, where the game asks you about different teams, and you say “yes” or “no” until you get to the one you want. It’s a small quibble, it just seems like an odd choice. Still, it doesn’t take much away from the experience.

"MLB The Show 21 delivers exactly what baseball fans expect. It’s not a game-changer, but it’s a solid experience. A few good changes here and there, mixed with strong fundamentals, make for a good experience."

One thing I did really appreciate was the ability to run Road to the Show as a two-way player. Previous games largely locked you into a choice as either a pitcher or a position player. The option to request play as a two-way player really lets you get the best of both worlds, allowing you to bounce back and forth between pitching and position play. It helps mix things up, and keeps Road to the Show from getting repetitive as it goes on.

Overall, though, the core of the mode remains largely the same as last years. Play on the field provides incremental changes to your core stats. Play well, and you may get better in various stats that affect your performance on the field. Choke during a match, and your associated skills will deteriorate instead. Training during your off days allows you to zero in on specific skills, so you can buff your strengths or cover your weak points. Meanwhile, periodic challenges will pop up during gameplay, usually when you’re in a clutch situation. For example, as a pitcher when the bases are loaded, you can get challenges for things such as getting through the inning without giving up any runs. These challenges provide additional experience and skill bumps. The also help liven up the gameplay on the field.

Still, most of this is the same as last year. And in fact, the same can be said of most of The Show 21. If you played last year’s game, there isn’t a whole lot that’s changed with this new release. It does look a bit better. Animations are still excellent, as is the attention to detail in the stadiums, though facial animations do still look a little awkward. A couple of small tweaks to the modes, such as the aforementioned two-way play during Road to the Show, are welcome and help to spice things up. Overall, though, there’s not much new on offer here. That can definitely make The Show 21 feel like a bit of a harder sell.

"Animations are still excellent, as is the attention to detail in the stadiums, though facial animations do still look a little awkward."

But that’s only true on the surface. Most of the improvements made here are small, incremental changes. They don’t seem like a lot on their own, but taken together they add up to a better product overall. Carrying your Road to the Show player to Diamond Dynasty is great, and the mode generally felt better than it did last year. Admittedly, this is a bit harder to quantify than some of my other points. I can’t really pinpoint exactly what felt better here. My team just felt better, more formidable right out of the gate. It felt less grindy than last year. It never overtook Road to the Show for me, but it’s a strong mode in its own right.

The rest of the modes feel the same. Franchise mode is as deep as ever, with a lot for players to sink their teeth into. March to October is still a lot of fun, and was my personal favorite mode outside of Road to the Show. There’s something so satisfying about taking a pro team and leading them to a stellar season, and March to October delivers that feeling perfectly.

Meanwhile, additional modes offer bits of gameplay outside of the core four options. Weekly challenges add some variety. Moments allows you to play as legends of the game in some of their most iconic moments. And one of my favorite options, Retro Mode, allows you to play the game with old-school mechanics. It’s a lot more casual than the other modes, but that doesn’t stop it from being a blast.

Technically, MLB The Show 21 works just as well as past installments. It looks good and plays seamlessly. The animations are excellent, as is the lighting. There’s very little stutter or lag during gameplay, and the controls are smooth, simple, and responsive.

"Technically, MLB The Show 21 works just as well as past installments. It looks good and plays seamlessly."

That’s the best way to describe MLB The Show 21, honestly. It’s smooth, simple, and solid. It’s not a revolutionary title. It doesn’t do anything crazy or unexpected, and it doesn’t redefine sports games. Instead, it focuses on doing the things it does best. The core modes have seen changes and refinements that add up to a better, more satisfying experience. The controls and visuals are excellent, and the different gameplay modes all have something to offer. MLB The Show has long been one of the best franchises in sports games, and this installment is no exception.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Turning feels slow and sluggish. It felt at times like my PS4 controller was lagging. I would input a turn on my controller, but my bike would have a noticeable delay before it actually turned. This, coupled with the game’s staunch refusal to actually teach beginners anything in the tutorial, leaves yoi baffled, unsure if the problem is with the control scheme or the beginner’s lack of understanding of the gameplay mechanic. Either way, it quickly saps any enthusiasm you may have had for the game. This is only made even worse by the fact that the tutorial is completely mandatory. You quite literally cannot leave or skip the tutorial, and the game denies you access to any of its main content until you complete it.

Depending on how quickly you figure out the game’s obtuse design, you could waste several minutes or even an hour or more beating yourself against the tutorial. The game offers no actual help, no tooltips, explanations, or prompts to help you learn from your mistakes. This means that, unless you’re already a seasoned veteran of the franchise, you’re very likely to hit a wall, literally and figuratively, before you even get the chance to play the actual game.

"Right out of the gate, RIDE 4 makes a underwhelming first impression."

However, this doesn’t mean RIDE 4 is a poor game. Particularly with regards to the visuals, the game actually stands out well. The bikes are gorgeous, the rider animations are fluid and believable, and even the character models look pretty decent. There’s a lot of different kinds of make and model of bikes, and the game does a good job of simulating the differences in their weight, steering, and other characteristics. Weather effects, too, are pretty well modeled. Different terrains and weathers affect traction, steering, and acceleration in different ways. From a physics perspective, the game actually offers a strong simulation. But unfortunately, the controls’ lag follows you throughout the experience, hampering an otherwise solid representation of the sport.

As someone who has reviewed a fair number of racers in the past, I was able to get the hang of the game, but for newcomers, the game fails to explain different event types, or what the changes you make to your bikes actually do. Just about everything in the game is left to you to figure out on your own. Simulation-wise, RIDE 4 is a deep game, and there is a lot to learn here. But the issues I mentioned previously make the game feel confusing, and unwelcoming.

RIDE 4 also lacks content. It offers a decent enough career mode, and a wide variety of tracks and bikes, but outside of the career mode, there’s precious little to do. A quick race mode offers you, well, races. That’s it. There are no challenge modes, none of the exciting content that games like this usually offer to keep you entertained. There’s no legacy option, no challenges, nothing. If you aren’t totally sold by the game’s core racing, there’s just not much to hold your attention. The career mode, meanwhile, is lengthy enough, taking you through several different circuits and tournaments on your way to the championship. The game also features an editor, where you can make custom decals, skins, and other content for your bikes and racers. It’s not terribly deep, but it can be fun to mess around in.

"Visually, RIDE 4 looks like a spectacular modern racing game, but the controls and content scream of a game ten years older."

To it’s credit, RIDE 4 does offer a decent multiplayer offering. It’s the same core race types as the rest of the game, but racing with other people feels a lot more fun. Playing on my review build, there were some issues with the servers. I got disconnected from matches a few times, and there were some latency issues. But when it worked, it was probably the most fun part of the game.

Visually, RIDE 4 looks like a spectacular modern racing game, but the controls and content scream of a game ten years older. The whole time, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was playing something very dated. The game does have some good elements to it. As I said, RIDE 4 is a pretty game, if nothing else. The bikes are gorgeous, bordering on phenomenal for those truly enthusiastic about the sport, and environments are clear and pretty.

The real shame of RIDE 4 is that there’s the bones of a decent racing game here. It looks and sounds the part, and you can tell that there was passion put into it. There’s plenty of bikes and tracks, and they’re all lovingly rendered and animated in beautiful detail. The physics simulation is detailed and accurate, doing a great job of differentiating the various bikes and weather conditions. And when the game isn’t fighting you, it’s possible to have some fun. But the lack of content and leggy controls hold back this game from truly shining. RIDE 4 can be really hard on newcomers, and if that is the case then the game seems utterly uninterested in helping you progress or improve. It simply presents itself to you, demanding perfection at all times and promising little in return.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

You have four different serve and swing types, each mapped to the face buttons. This is straightforward enough, but elsewhere there are some odd control choices. Movement and shot placement are both mapped to the same stick. This makes it remarkably difficult to move in one direction and try to hit the ball in the opposite direction. You get used to it eventually, but it never really stops being annoying. There’s other issues on the court that hold the game back. While it is a marked improved visually compared to it’s predecessor, it still doesn’t look particularly good.

"Tennis World Tour 2 hasn’t quite learned the lessons of the game it seeks to emulate. The game’s overall approach is solid, but several small issues build up, and result in a game less than the sum of its parts."

Character models are odd looking, with facial animations being particularly bad. The models also have a strange sheen to them sometimes, which makes them look less like people and more like plastic models. The animations fare similarly. Some are decent, but a few of the animations look downright goofy. Characters look almost comical as they dash and sometimes skip across the court. Admittedly, it is an improvement over the previous game, where animation issues actually affected gameplay. That isn’t the case here, but they definitely affect immersion. A big draw of sports games is losing yourself in the illusion of playing the sport. That’s a lot harder to do when the people in the game look so awkward.

Still, the biggest issue with Tennis World Tour 2 is its brevity of content. There’s just not a lot to do here. And what is here is fairly straightforward. There’s a career mode, where you take a custom player through a professional tennis career, and there’s an exhibition mode. This is just a straightforward custom match option, where you set up a doubles or singles game with players of your choosing. But there’s none of the other modes that are often the selling point for sports titles like this. The game feels severely lacking in terms of content.

This wouldn’t be as big of a problem if what the game does have was excellent, but it’s not. It’s not bad, not really. It’s just simplistic, and offers nothing that hasn’t been done better elsewhere. The career mode is fun enough, but it doesn’t really do much. You go from tournament to tournament, with the final goal of reaching the world championship. And that’s pretty much all there is to it. You can choose to skip an event to undergo training instead, but this is a passive experience. Unlike other sports games I’ve reviewed, like UFC 4, where your training actually requires you to, well, train, here you just get a pop-up telling you that certain skills have improved.

"The biggest issue with Tennis World Tour 2 is its brevity of content."

Aside from that, you can earn skill cards that can be used to provide yourself with boosts during a match, or to give hindrances to your opponents. But the problem is how you acquire them. You don’t purchase these cards directly. Instead, you buy packs of them that reward you with a random selection of cards. It makes you feel like you have remarkably little agency in actually determining your character’s playstyle. You don’t work towards anything. Instead, you just work towards abstract goals, like getting enough money to pay for a chance to get that skill boosting card that you want. This is the biggest problem with career mode.

Outside of the matches themselves, you just don’t actually do all that much. You don’t make rivals or friendships, you don’t train. You just watch a number go up that gives you a random chance of a card that makes other numbers go up. I never really felt like I was making progress. The game was progressing, sure, but I never really felt like a part of it. The tragic part is that the actual core gameplay of Tennis World Tour 2 is pretty decent. It doesn’t look great, and the controls can be wonky at first. But once you get the hang of it, play feels decently fluid. Doubles matches in particular can actually be a lot of fun.

And there’s a pretty wide selection of players, courts, and gear that you can experiment with. Different weather conditions can affect your performance in different ways. Honestly, exhibition mode is the most fun part of the game. It’s the only part of the game where you can really experiment, trying out different courts and gear and weather at your whim to see how things change. But even on the court, the fun doesn’t last too long. Different players don’t feel all that different from each other during play, and the cards didn’t really feel like they made all that much of a difference.

"Watching tennis can be a lot of fun, but it’s not the experience I want when I’m playing a tennis game."

Half the time, I felt like I was watching a tennis match even as I was playing. Watching tennis can be a lot of fun, but it’s not the experience I want when I’m playing a tennis game. I want to feel like I’m playing.

I suppose die hard fans of the sport who really want a tennis game can have some fun here. The experience on the court is decent enough, and the wide roster of courts and players may excite those who are invested enough to appreciate it. But there just isn’t much here to hold your attention for long. And what is here is surface deep, feeling average at best and bland at worst. Tennis World Tour 2 is an improvement over its predecessor, but it still doesn’t stand out in any way. If you’re really set on a great game of virtual tennis, I’d suggest booting up an old copy of Top Spin instead. You’ll have more fun in the end.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox One.

If you’re coming into this as a returning player, you may initially be disappointed by what you see. There’s very little that’s different, at least at first glance. The game’s interface is very similar to previous games. The structure, menus, and mechanics behind the career mode are similarly unchanged. While this does make it easy for returning fans to know exactly where to start, it’s more of an issue than anything else. The menus and interface have always been clunky, and WRC 9 is no exception. Navigating the menus for the career mode especially can be clunky and unintuitive, particularly if you’re playing on consoles like I was. The controls and interface never quite feel natural. It’s one thing to make incremental changes, but leaving the interface completely unchanged wasn’t the best call.

"It’s not perfect, and returning fans may find it plays things a bit too safe in some areas. But overall, WRC 9 is a solid entry in the series."

The game suffers some other issues on the technical front as well. Load times, at least on consoles, were a bit longer than I would have expected. It can definitely get a bit frustrating waiting through them, especially with the repetitive soundtrack. The music is generic, and doesn’t really seem to fit the atmosphere of the sport. This is a minor complaint, for sure, and you can mute the music if you want, so it isn’t really a big deal. But it doesn’t make those long load times any less irritating.

WRC 9 also has some other technical stumbles as well. For the most part, the visuals are solid. Cars look great both on and off the track. The lighting and weather effects are similarly solid. And the damage modeling for the cars is impressive. The environments also look good, especially when viewed from a distance. Up close, there are some hiccups, particularly regarding aliasing, but it’s nothing too major. It’s not gonna win any awards for its visuals, but they look nice and get the job done well enough. But where the issues really lie here is the audio. Beyond the aforementioned soundtrack, the sound design in general is lacking. Most of the cars sound identical to one another. The game’s audio mixing is also strange, with some sounds coming through far louder than they were likely intended to. At times the audio would even cut out on me altogether. This is especially true of the car audio. Engine and impact sounds would sometimes glitch and just not play. These issues aren’t game breaking, but they are strange, and they definitely bring the game down on a technical level.

But that’s not really the important thing here. What matters in a game like this is the driving. Thankfully in that regard, WRC 9 is a strong contender. The cars handle well, and the controls for driving are simple to pick up. The game does a great job of simulating all of the different factors and conditions that can affect your handling during a race. Different cars handle differently, as do different types of terrain. WRC 9 does a particularly great job here. The different environment, terrain, and weather effects are absolutely stellar, and they are simulated perfectly. Snow has no traction, and slipping and sliding is a regular occurrence. Mud and rain affect your grip, and it’s easy to get bogged down in thick mud if you aren’t careful. The game does a wonderful job handling the interactions between your car and the environment. Everything behaves in a realistic way, difficult to manage, but consistent in that difficulty. The physics are really top notch in this regard.

"What matters in a game like this is the driving. Thankfully in that regard, WRC 9 is a strong contender."

WRC 9 also does a good job of making the different cars feel distinct from one another. They all handle a little differently, with different acceleration, traction, weight, center of gravity, and a whole host of other factors. You can also tweak your cars, allowing you to further modify your car’s handling to suit your preferences and the needs of the track. The customization is as deep as you’d expect from a game like this, and it’s really well done.

WRC 9 isn’t hurting for content, either. Games like this can sometimes have a tendency to be a little light on things to do. Thankfully, WRC 9 has plenty to offer. The career mode is the meat of the game. It’s a strong experience. While in the career mode, you take on the role of both manager and driver. You set up your crew, hiring different specialists, making contracts, and setting up your event schedule. Then you hit the track. All of this is in the goal of moving up the standings to qualify in the titular WRC, the World Rally Championship. There’s a lot to keep track of, and it can be daunting for new players. But the game offers a surprisingly deep tutorial for first time players that explains the ins and outs of career mode. It still doesn’t quite help with the clunky interface, but it’s a big help regardless.

Aside from that, there’s the usual quick race options, where you pick a track and a car and immediately enter the competition. Season mode allows you to participate in a rally without having to worry about the crew management aspect of career mode. It’s a nice intermediate option between career mode and quick play. Challenges require you to complete certain objectives on a preselected track with a preselected car. Meanwhile, the multiplayer options come in both an online and split screen option. I will always praise the inclusion of split screen multiplayer in games these days. It’s a dying feature, but it’s always a welcome one. The online events serve as an online equivalent to the single player challenges. And finally, the esports mode allows you to challenge yourself and other players in a high stakes competitive environment. This mode even comes complete with its own rewards and unlockables.

"WRC 9 isn’t hurting for content, either. Games like this can sometimes have a tendency to be a little light on things to do. Thankfully, WRC 9 has plenty to offer."

WRC 9 isn’t a ground-breaking experience. It suffers from the same long-standing UI issues that have plagued the franchise for ages. And from a technical perspective, it’s far from perfect. The sound design in particular is a major culprit here. But the game delivers in spades where it truly matters. The actual racing in WRC 9 is top notch, rewarding skill and practice in a way that feels true to the sport without feeling punishing. Ample content, meanwhile, ensures that you don’t get bored while putting in those practice hours. If you’re looking for a high skill, off-road racing simulation, WRC 9 is your game.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox One.

"You can upgrade cars using currency earned during the career mode. This in turn opens up more options to modify and fine tune your car, tweaking it to emphasize things like braking, handling, and speed."

The game was claimed early on in development to be a spiritual successor to Need for Speed: Shift, and you can definitely see hints of that hiding in the game’s design. It’s also drawn some comparisons to the game GRID, and I think those comparisons are apt as well. The game goes for a more arcade styled progression system than previous entries. Here, you climb a ladder of sequential events, knocking out a handful of short events at a time. As you do so, you progressively earn money, experience points, and other rewards for your efforts.

It’s a far cry from the previous progression systems of the game’s predecessors, but I found it to be a fun change nonetheless. It gives the game a snappier pace, and the rewards flow pretty consistently, meaning you always feel like you’re accomplishing something and making progress. If you’re looking for the heftier, slower tournament style progression of past entries, then you might find yourself disappointed by these changes. Personally, I found them to be a lot of fun. The progression feels quick, snappy and constantly rewarding.

Gone are mechanics such as tire wear, and the actual mechanics of driving are greatly simplified. These cars turn at the front and break hard, as is the case in most arcade style racers. The driving feels good, and the cars are quick and responsive. In fact, the game does an excellent job of addressing some issues with handling and steering that have plagued the series since its inception. By making the cars more responsive in turns, and quicker to control, they’ve fixed the game’s sometimes wonky handling. Past entries had issues with some cars feeling much more responsive than others, while others felt sluggish and hard to control. By placing all the cars on more even footing, it fixes that problem, even going as far as to nearly eliminate it altogether.

"In addition to the visual flaws, the game suffers from some pretty poor decision making in its menus and other quality of life areas."

That’s not to say that the game eliminates it’s depth along with the handling options. On the contrary, you can still fine tune your cars to a pretty intense degree. You can upgrade cars using currency earned during the career mode. This in turn opens up more options to modify and fine tune your car, tweaking it to emphasize things like braking, handling, and speed. With enough upgrades, you can turn a dinky street car into a competitive race car. Admittedly, that sounds like a strange prospect at first, and it may serve to turn off those looking for a game grounded in the realism of the sport.

But at the same time, it’s a lot of fun and strangely satisfying to do so. Knowing that you’ve taken this little car, one that really has no place on a professional track, and have upgraded it from its humble beginnings into a professional race car feels immensely rewarding. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t offer that same depth and satisfaction in its visual customization, which is lacking compared to other major games in the genre, like Forza or Gran Turismo. Your options just feel kind of limited here, and it’s hard to make the cars look too distinct or interesting.

The game is generally something of a disappointment on all visual counts, actually. It just doesn’t look all that great when stacked up against its competition. When you’re in a genre like racing, competing with games like Forza and its top of the line graphics, your own visual shortcomings only become more noticeable. The cars themselves look good, as is expected. But environments look flat and weather effects are disappointingly static in appearance. The game also suffers from some more technical issues as well, including some noticeable aliasing on more distant objects and vehicles.

In fact, most of the game’s biggest flaws come on the technical side. In addition to the visual flaws, the game suffers from some pretty poor decision making in its menus and other quality of life areas. Menus are a cluttered mess to navigate, and they never really get any easier. The game also does a pretty poor job of actually explaining its progression and experience systems. It just leaves too much to you to figure out, and it can make the early experience a lot more confusing than it needs to be. Similarly, the AI is all over the place, both literally and figuratively. Their behavior during races can be downright weird at times, and they can alternate between extremely dumb and unbelievably aggressive. It’s usually the first one, but when the AI decides to play aggressively it can be really frustrating.

Luckily the actual racing experience is a blast. It’s fluid and responsive, and the cars feel like a joy to drive. Once you figure out the menus and progression, the systems at work here are rewarding and fun to play through. And while the customization isn’t the greatest in the world, it still gives you something to strive for, and the upgrade paths you can take for your cars are a blast. From a purely racing perspective, this is one of my favorite games out right now.

"Project CARS 3 feels like a daring departure, one that takes a lot of risks and will probably catch a lot of flak. But for those willing to take the risk, it’s a lot of fun."

And here’s the thing. Project CARS 3 achieves all of this success by throwing out major elements of what defined the previous games in the series. But despite the sweeping changes it makes to the franchise, Project CARS 3 works because there’s such a confident vision running throughout the entire experience.

All of the choices and changes that the developers made play off of and compliment one another. Every change made has a reason and serves a purpose. It’s that singular philosophy, that clarity of vision that keeps the game from feeling like a simplified cash grab. Instead, the game feels like a daring departure, one that takes a lot of risks and will probably catch a lot of flak. But for those willing to take the risk, it’s a lot of fun.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

PGA 2K21 is the first game in this series to bear the 2K moniker. Originally self-published by developer HB Studios under the title The Golf Club, the series was acquired by 2K a couple of years ago. One might thing this would be a boon for the franchise. After all, 2K isn’t exactly a small publisher. They should be able to provide the resources necessary to make a truly state of the art golfing simulator.

"Unlike other sports games nowadays, which implement things like social media, training, and skill points to keep things interesting off the field, PGA Tour 2K21 simply moves you along from one game to the next, with little in between to keep you engaged."

Unfortunately though, despite 2K’s involvement, PGA Tour still feels distinctly low budget at times. Visually, the game is all over the place. The environments look decent enough. There’s some nice water and lighting effects, and the graphics are distinct enough to tell the fairway from the rough. Character models are well-animated, but the models themselves don’t hold up well, especially the faces. The eyes open too wide for too long, and the mouths are a frightening sight. This wouldn’t be a problem if the game didn’t do frequent close-ups after most holes. PGA Tour 2K21 also suffers from a serious antialiasing problem. Sometimes it gets so bad that objects actually appear to shimmer as a result of the artifacting.

In the audio department too, the game is a mixed bag. The music is pleasant enough, but short and repetitive. There’s only so many times I can hear the same soft, pseudo-jazz piano riffs before I start to get tired of them. The announcers, meanwhile, have good delivery, but their commentary can sometimes feel out of place. It seems like not enough lines were recorded to cover all the circumstances on the green. There were more than a few times where I would start a course with a poor performance, coming in at one or two over par. But I would manage to pull it together in the end, coming in well under par on the final holes.

At the end of the game, the commentators would talk as though I had been solidly under par for the entire course, making no mention of my rough start or of my comeback in the final few holes. Compared to other games I’ve reviewed this year, like MLB The Show and UFC 4, the commentary feels lacking. It repeats too often, and oftentimes doesn’t quite match up with the onscreen action.

"PGA Tour 2K21 seeks to step onto the green with a game that delivers on that experience. And while it succeeds, some technical issues and low production values hold the game back."

The game also suffers from some slow load times between matches. Their duration was pretty inconsistent. Sometimes a course would load fairly quickly. But after matches, it often took a very long time to return to the menu. I’m not quite sure why, but after the very opening match of the career mode, the game took over five full minutes to load the career mode menu after the match. The inconsistent load times are frustrating, and it’s actually made worse by the fact that you can’t count on them to at least always take a long time. Sometimes courses load quickly. Other times the game seems to slow to a snail’s pace.

It’s a shame that PGA Tour 2K21 still suffers so much on the technical side of things, despite 2K’s financial backing. It’s unfortunate because despite these issues, the game is actually a lot of fun to play. The experience out on the green is an absolute joy, and really nails the high-skill feeling of professional golf. The controls are smooth, fluid, and responsive. The game gives you plenty of options to help you fine-tune your approach, including a bird’s eye view that helps you to more precisely aim your shots. The swinging and putting mechanics are simple to grasp, and PGA Tour 2K21 does a great job of easing beginners into the experience without sacrificing the depth that more experienced players desire. There are also plenty of assists, including a one-time use aim assist during putts.

The game will also help you pick the clubs and stroke every time, meaning those with a more casual understanding of the sport can rely on the game’s assistance to help them get a decent performance. But those who want to can ignore or even disable these assists altogether. And if you do so, PGA Tour 2K21 has a well-made golf simulation. The physics are realistic, clear, and consistent. The ball always interacts with hills, wind, and other hazards exactly as you’d expect it to, and the game does a great job of simulating the differences between the fairway, rough, and bunker. Swinging in different situations actually feels different.

Unfortunately, while the experience out on the golf course is excellent across the board, even the rest of the career mode suffers from the same lack of polish as the rest of the game. There simply isn’t much here to keep you going if you aren’t totally invested in the actual experience of playing golf. The career mode is fairly barebones.

You start off in an amateur match, which serves as your proving grounds for entering the professional circuits. From there, you enter the PGA Tour, vying for the top spot on the leaderboards. Unfortunately, that’s really all there is too it. Unlike other sports games nowadays, which implement things like social media, training, and skill points to keep things interesting off the field, PGA Tour 2K21 simply moves you along from one game to the next, with little in between to keep you engaged.

"Unfortunately, while the experience out on the golf course is excellent across the board, even the rest of the career mode suffers from the same lack of polish as the rest of the game."

You earn cash after each game, and from optional mid-course challenges, but these rewards can only be used to purchase new clubs and outfits. The new clubs do have some mechanical differences, but not enough to really feel like they make a difference. I didn’t notice much of a difference between the default clubs and any of the unlockable ones.

The cosmetics, meanwhile, are just that- cosmetic. The quality is pretty hit or miss, and aside from changing how you look, they don’t do anything. This is a far cry from many other sports games, where your downtime can be spent training, upgrading your skills, and interacting with fans and rivals. There is a rival system, but even this feels dated. Unlike other games, where your rivalries grow organically based on your behavior on and off the field, in PGA 2K21 you simply progress through a series of predetermined rivals. You can actually look in the career mode and see your progress to unlocking the next rival. I suppose it adds a bit of a goal to strive for, but compared to the organic way rivalries operate in other sports games, this feels dated and uninteresting by comparison.

PGA Tour 2K21 offers a mechanically solid golfing experience that genuinely rewards skill and practice. The gameplay on the green is a lot of fun, and really makes you want to keep playing. Unfortunately, it’s really the only thing that drives you on, as the rest of the experience feels dated by several years. It’s a shame, because with some more polish put into the visuals and modes, PGA Tour 2K21 could have been a stand-out sports game. As it stands, it’s only a decent one.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

The core of any UFC game is obviously the fighting system, and it’s here that UFC 4 shines. The game doesn’t shake up its formula too much, instead opting for incremental changes and measured improvements. It doesn’t seem like much at first, but there are some welcome changes here. The fighting feels fast and fluid. Punches and kicks connect well, and carry a hefty weight to them. Combos are simple to learn, and the system is flexible enough to reward experimentation. The game also does a good job of easing players into the fighting mechanics. It does so through the career mode, which is started immediately when you first open the game. The early stages of the career mode take your character through a brief run in amateur fighting. It’s here that you’re taught the mechanics of the fighting system through a series of small fights and training sessions.

"Combat is fluid, and hits feel visceral and exciting."

It’s a welcome introduction. The career mode is the crux of the game, and for the most part it’s a solid experience. It’s no revolution, but it works well and is fun to play through. The first step is character creation. Making your character is pretty straightforward, and the creator is deep enough to mess around with. I was able to create some pretty wacky characters in it. You take this custom character through the career, where you manage your training, persona, and social media. And of course, participate in fights. The simple social media aspect allows you to respond to fans and other fighters, building friendships or rivalries based on your responses. It’s simplistic, but it’s a nice touch nonetheless. After you accept a challenge, you determine how close to the match your training camp starts.

Once you reach that point, you spend a set number of points for each week on training, fight promotion, research and other things. There’s a reasonable amount you can do here. You can research your opponent to learn about his fighting style, make social media posts to promote your fight, or take to the gym to keep yourself fit. Ideally, you’ll find a balance of all three, but hitting the gym is vital. It keeps you fit, which effects your performance in the match, and grants you points that are used to improve your skills. Like the rest of the game, the skill system is nothing that hasn’t been done before, but it’s done well and it works. Points can be invested in your various attributes, such as stamina, hit range and power, blocking and so on. Or they can be invested in upgrading and learning new moves, or in perks that grant you passive bonuses during matches.

Once you enter the Octagon and the fight begins, you get to the real meat of the game. UFC 4 performs pretty well here as well. Combat is fluid, and hits feel visceral and exciting. The fight mechanics are fairly straightforward, and the AI provides a decent challenge. Meanwhile, improvements to wrestling and grappling keep the flow moving pretty well. Transitions in wrestling on the ground are a lot smoother and easier to manage than in previous games. They’re still far from perfect, mind you, but they’re a definite step in the right direction. Clinching is easier to enter and escape, and your options for offense and defense during clinches have been improved.

"Stamina is the main resource in UFC 4’s fighting system, and if you drain it too quickly, as you’re apt to do in a grapple, your max stamina is reduced for the rest of the match."

Unfortunately, the game’s biggest issues also come in the Octagon. The game’s meta is dominated by wrestling, specifically submissions. They’re far too powerful (and easy) to perform, and far too devastating to be a victim of. The rhythm of transitions and escape is clunky and hard to get down. And God help you if your opponent has a higher Wrestling stat than you do. That little statistic is seemingly the only real factor in grappling. You can do everything right to try to escape, filling up the bar to stand up, but if your opponent has a higher Wrestling stat, they will still somehow manage to knock you back down.

Escape can be nigh on impossible. And since transitions and escape attempts put a pretty significant drain on your stamina, it only takes a couple of failures to find yourself caught in an inescapable loop. And even if you do escape, you find yourself at a serious disadvantage. Stamina is the main resource in UFC 4’s fighting system, and if you drain it too quickly, as you’re apt to do in a grapple, your max stamina is reduced for the rest of the match. This means that even if you manage to successfully escape, you’ll find yourself at a major disadvantage for the rest of the fight. It makes wrestling feel punishing, and makes Jiu Jitsu specialized fighters a nightmare to encounter. It may be a realistic depiction of how hard wrestling is, but mechanically it isn’t very fun.

This also makes skills that impact wrestling, or make you more resistant to it, the most important skills by far. Thankfully, the rest of the fighting experience is a lot of fun, despite the flaws of the wrestling system. Landing a punch feels great, and the thrill of a hard-fought victory never gets old. You’ll feel like a genuine badass fighter working your way through the brackets of the UFC, eventually taking your shot at the UFC title. The different play styles you can choose from mean your different characters feel distinct, opening up a decent amount of replay value as well. The rest of the game is pretty basic. There’s a quick fight mode where you can pick from the game’s huge, all-star roster of fighters past and present for one-off matches. And of course, there’s an online mode where you can test your skills against other players.

"There’s a quick fight mode where you can pick from the game’s huge, all-star roster of fighters past and present for one-off matches."

UFC 4 doesn’t reinvent the genre, nor does it fully resolve the franchise’s long-standing issues with wrestling mechanics. But it still offers up a fun and rewarding experience, one that manages to capture the visceral excitement of the sport in an experience that is both accessible and rewarding. Solid fighting mechanics make you feel powerful, while an entertaining career mode offers solid replay value. It may not be a perfect game, but it’s a lot of fun regardless. New and returning players alike can find something to enjoy here, whether you’re an experienced player or new to the Octagon.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

For the first few hours, Hyper Scape won me over. There’s a lot of charm to this game, and it manages to coast by on it for the first few hours. The game opens with a beautifully animated cutscene that introduces you to the game’s setting. The cutscene is full of energy, with hints of sarcastic humor that help ramp up the charm. That charm continues throughout the visual design of the game. The characters are colorful and expressive. That color carries on in the rest of the game, which has a bright and vibrant color palette that makes the game a pleasure on the eyes. Even the representation of the map shrinking is cool to watch. Since technically you’re supposed to be playing an in-universe game, the map shrinks by showing zones slowly pixelate and de-render. It’s a cool effect, and looks more interesting than yet another mysterious cloud closing in on the players. It also means that, instead of always closing in a circle pattern, the map can segment into several distinct chunks. This makes it look different every single playthrough.

"But after a couple of hours, the holes in the foundation start to appear, and by the end of my time with Hyper Scape, the game’s glaring flaws had become all to apparent."

After watching the intro cutscene, you’re spawned into a training area, where you’re familiarized with the game’s mechanics. Most of them are pretty standard; you spawn in with nothing but a melee weapon, and have to find guns and abilities scattered across the map. The abilities, called hacks, are meant to augment your current abilities. They tend to be highly mobile though; even the offensive ones, like the slam attack, give you a significant boost to your maneuverability. This usually comes in the form of a dash forward or a huge leap into the air. All of your weapons and hacks can be upgraded by picking up duplicate spawns of them in the world.

On paper, this sounds like a great recipe for a fun, exciting, and fast paced shooter. And for the first couple of hours, it really feels that way. The game is extremely fast. You move fast, and the hacks give you constant boosts to your movement that keep you going at top speeds the entire time. A simple climbing mechanic makes verticality a key aspect of the game. Meanwhile, a large variety of guns help keep your loadouts feeling varied. For the first few hours, the recipe seems to be a success. I had a lot of fun dashing and sliding and leaping across the map. It felt cool, it felt fresh. It was a lot of fun at first.

But after a couple of hours, the holes in the foundation start to appear, and by the end of my time with Hyper Scape, the game’s glaring flaws had become all to apparent. The core issue with the game can be boiled down to one massive flaw; time to kill. For the uninitiated, time to kill is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s a reference to how long you have to shoot an enemy player before you get the kill. Most fast paced games like this have a quick time to kill. They need to, because the high speed and mobility makes it rare to have an enemy in your sights for very long. And this is Hyper Scape’s glaring issue. It has a ridiculously long time to kill, far too long for a game that moves this fast and has this much mobility. Getting a single kill can become a long, drawn out affair. Oftentimes, you wind up having to chase a single target across the entire map, wasting precious seconds and even minutes of the match, because it’s simply impossible to put enough bullets on them before they leap, slide, or teleport away from you.

"The high mobility even hampers many of the abilities in the game, making only a few of them worth using."

I did some testing of the gun mechanics in the training zone, which can be accessed at any time from the game’s hub. Nearly every weapon in the game requires close to half of their magazine capacity to score a kill. Even the shotgun, which is one of the worst I’ve seen in a modern FPS, requires two or more shots to kill. In a game as fast as this, that makes it a functionally worthless weapon. Most weapons don’t get damage upgrades until the final upgrade tier. This makes upgrades feel essentially useless, unless you luck into getting the max upgrade. At that point, you will win any duel with a lower tier version of the same gun, with pretty much no exceptions.

Most of the explosive weapons, meanwhile, do far too little damage and have far too slow projectile speeds to be worth much of anything in combat. There’s one in particular, a single shot explosive cannon, that requires three or more hits to score a kill. But being a single shot weapon means you’re constantly reloading. Combined with the extreme speed and maneuverability of players, and you end up with a gun that won’t kill much of anything at all. This makes the handful of guns with the highest damage and highest accuracy the only guns that are really worth using at all.

The insane time to kill also promotes a brutal team shot meta, where it’s almost impossible to win an encounter where you’re outnumbered by your opponents. Since your own time to kill is so slow, you’ll almost never be able to kill one of your enemies before they simple gang up on you and melt your health down. It results in game that, on paper, has a lot of room for tactical positioning and strategy. Unfortunately, in practice, the game ultimately boils down to lucky drops and pure twitch reflexes.

The high mobility even hampers many of the abilities in the game, making only a few of them worth using. The wall power-up is easily navigated around. The ability that spots enemies on the map for you is generally outdated by the time you even use it, because the enemies move so fast that they’re usually somewhere else entirely. Meanwhile, the slam ability dominates everything, as it gives you a massive leap into the air and deals damage when you land. The game’s high mobility and slow kill times work against each other, creating an environment where only a few guns and abilities actually feel worth using.

"With some patches to make time to kill faster, and to better balance the weapons and abilities, Hyper Scape could become an enjoyable experience."

It’s a major shame, too, because there is a good game hiding under these problems. A highly mobile battle royale has the potential to be a lot of fun. The movement is fluid, and the abilities are legitimately fun to use. But they overpower the weapons so aggressively that it takes away any real feeling of skill or strategy from the game.

It boils the whole experience down to a matter of who found the submachine gun, easily one of the best weapons in the game, and turns most gunfights into drawn out chases that end in you turning a corner and unceremoniously dying. With some patches to make time to kill faster, and to better balance the weapons and abilities, Hyper Scape could become an enjoyable experience. But here in season one, it’s a disappointment, one with a lot of potential but deeply flawed execution. It’s possible to have some fun here. But I’d recommend waiting a season or two and seeing if the game gets the patches it needs.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox One.

The gameplay is very simple. Rocket Arena is a class-based multiplayer shooter, pitting teams of three against each other in a handful of different modes. Each of the characters have a few different abilities that help them stand out from the rest of the crowd. These abilities tend to be pretty simple, usually things like a protective barrier, or explosive shots. A few of the characters have some more involved abilities, however. For example, one of my favorite characters, the stage magician Mysteen, has an ability to create a doppelganger of herself that moves and attacks enemies. She can change positions with the clone with the push of a button. All of the characters have the ability to triple jump, and items that you can pick up during gameplay can enhance your mobility.

"Unfortunately, this positive first impression lasts only for a few hours thanks to the disappointingly shallow gameplay."

At first impression, this sounds like a solid game, and in some ways, it is. The characters all feel diverse; none of them overlap too heavily with any of the other characters abilities. Some of them have pretty good synergy with their abilities, and there are some really interesting character designs as well. In fact, one of the places this game excels is its visuals and character design. The characters are bright and exaggerated, and they have a certain cartoon charm that makes them appealing. Characters stand out well from the environment, and important information is prominently displayed.

Different artifacts can be unlocked that provide passive boosts for your characters. But the game automatically equips the first three that you unlock, ensuring that even if you’re not paying any attention at all, you’re at least getting some benefit. It’s no coincidence either, then, that the first three artifacts are some of the best. The announcer, too, is loud and in your face, spelling things out to an almost annoying degree, but with a cartoonish delivery that is charming for all types of audiences. The action never slows down, and the colorful characters are a joy to watch.

Unfortunately, this positive first impression lasts only for a few hours thanks to its disappointingly shallow gameplay. Make no mistake, for the first couple of matches, Rocket Arena is surprisingly fun. The action moves fast thanks to quick characters and small maps, meaning you’re never out of the fight for very long. But after a few matches, the shallowness of its design starts to become obvious, and the enjoyment begins to fade. There’s just not much to the gameplay beyond what’s on the surface. There isn’t much opportunity for strategy, because none of the different characters really feel like they play off of each other.

"There’s just not much to the gameplay beyond what’s on the surface. There isn’t much opportunity for strategy, because none of the different characters really feel like they play off of each other."

It’s also alarming how quickly you realize that some characters are just better than others. Rocket Arena suffers from some frustrating balance issues, primarily in its character design. First of all, any characters with increased mobility, such as those that can fly or gain extra jumps, have an immediate advantage over the slower characters. This is a game that’s all about mobility, and faster characters have an innate advantage over the slower, tankier characters.

But even aside from that, some of the characters abilities make them noticeably more effective. The character of Topnotch, for example, has a jetpack that allows him to fly across the map. He can remain in the air pretty much indefinitely, making him a difficult target. Meanwhile, his two abilities are both explosives with a large area of effect, allowing him to blanket enemies with damage while remaining completely out of the fight. Meanwhile, one of my favorite characters was Kayi, who on the surface is a manoeuvrable sniper. But in practice, the game just moves too fast for a character like her, who is based around precise targeting, to really feel effective. Flaws like this stand out, and hamper an otherwise decently fun experience.

The core gameplay itself is fun, however. There are a variety of match types, including a team deathmatch mode, a treasure hunt mode, and a soccer-esque mode called Rocketball. Meanwhile, the combat mechanics don’t involve killing your enemies in a traditional sense. Instead, dealing damage to them fills up a meter, and when the meter is full your enemies are launched up into the air and off the map, at which point you score a point and they are returned to their spawn point. It’s a unique concept for a shooter, and feels more akin to Super Smash Bros than games like Overwatch. Still, once you get past the initial novelty of it, it doesn’t drastically change the way you approach the game. You still need to shoot your enemies just like normal. And when their meter is full, they will get launched off the map regardless of where they are or how far they have to fly, meaning you don’t really have to worry about positioning. You just aim and shoot like any other game.

"The core gameplay itself is fun, however. There are a variety of match types, including a team deathmatch mode, a treasure hunt mode, and a soccer-esque mode called Rocketball."

Rocket Arena has a certain innocent appeal to it that is charming. And for a few matches, that charm and creativity can be enough to carry the experience. But after a few matches, you realize that the game’s appeal can’t really extend past that initial positive impression. The repetitive gameplay and balance issues keep it from being a true contender in the crowded arena shooter genre. With that said, I don’t really think Rocket Arena is intending to do that. You might find yourself enjoying it as a fun time-waster for a few matches. It’s not going to dethrone Overwatch any time soon, and some players will grow disinterested fairly quickly.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Mechanically, Alicization Lycaris is a pretty solid JRPG. The combat system revolves around your party, which consist of series protagonist Kurito, and a rotating cast of up to three supporting characters at a time. Each of the characters have different skills, proficiencies, and abilities. Balancing the different members of your party, and taking advantage of their different skills and weaknesses, is central to the combat system.

"Adapting Sword Art Online series to the medium it’s inspired by shouldn’t be too difficult. But the results are a mixed bag."

The mechanics here are pretty deep. Each character has a base type; Attack, Defense, or Buffer. These types determine some of their base stats and abilities. From there, you can unlock new weapons and armor pieces to equip them with, as well as a large perk tree. From this tree, you can learn different types of abilities that can be applied to your party members. Some of these are passive buffs, while others are special actions that can be triggered in combat. There’s a tree for each of the three character types, but perks can be applied to anyone. You can apply defensive perks to an attack-oriented character, for example. And once perks are unlocked, they’re available for all characters.

The combat itself is fairly straightforward, but once you get the hang of it it’s pretty fun. At its core, it’s all about using weaker attacks to charge up your special moves and making careful use of your abilities. Your main attacks don’t do much damage, but they charge up a skill meter that allows you to unleash more powerful attacks. Those attacks can be chained together, and augmented with skills and abilities to make them even more powerful. And you can switch between the different members of your party to trigger specific attacks and abilities. It’s not terribly complex, but it requires just enough strategy to keep you on your toes. The different characters feel distinct enough to be interesting without requiring you to relearn mechanics. There’s also a magic system, called System Arts, that comes into play later. These are smaller abilities that range from damage deflection to ranged attacks.

The combat is the core of the gameplay experience, but it’s not all this game has going for it. The fighting takes place in a large and vibrant world, full of things to do. The game is open world, for the most part. You travel between different large zones, each of which is filled with NPCs, materials to gather, monsters to kill, and side-quests to complete. The world design is one of the places where this game excels the best. On a technical level, the graphics actually aren’t all that impressive, but the vibrant color palette and interesting art direction make the world a joy to look at regardless. Some of the environments are genuinely breathtaking, and the monster designs are interesting and diverse. The music is top-notch as well, and does a great job of setting the different moods throughout the experience.

"The world design is one of the places where this game excels the best. On a technical level, the graphics actually aren’t all that impressive, but the vibrant color palette and interesting art direction make the world a joy to look at regardless."

This is all wrapped around a pretty solid story, revolving around the mystery of Kirito’s sudden appearance in an unfamiliar world, and the disappearance of a girl named Alice. The story is long, really long in fact, but is interesting enough to help carry the game along. Some of the dialog can feel stiff at times, a result of translation between the native Japanese and the English localization. But for the most part, the writing is solid, and the characters are compelling. There’s a lot of drama that goes on, and sometimes it can feel a little over the top. But the game also has some surprisingly grounded emotional moments, and some genuinely cool plot developments. It’s a long story, but one worth experiencing.

I said worth experiencing, and I meant it. But it comes with some pretty serious caveats. There’s a great experience here, but it’s buried under some strange, and at times downright poor, design. A lot of things just don’t make a whole lot of sense. On their own, none of these issues are all that bad, but taken together they make things a lot less enjoyable than they could be. For example, early on in the game, the plot is told mostly through fully animated cutscenes, with only occasional dialog windows. But maybe five or so hours in, the game suddenly switches to delivering its dialog through still images of the characters with text boxes below them. There’s no explanation for the change, and on occasion the game will give you a fully animated cutscene again. But far too many pivotal plot points are told through still images and text boxes. There’s nothing more exciting than listening to a high-octane swordfight with a picture of the combatants sitting still on the screen.

And speaking of the story, while it is a compelling one, the game places far too much emphasis on it, at the expense of actual gameplay. Far too often, you’ll take control of a character so you can walk about a hundred feet, and then click through ten minutes of dialog, so that you can turn around and do it again. You’ll sometimes find yourself clicking through half an hour of dialog boxes before the game takes you back to the overworld to fight monsters for ten minutes, only to return to another half an hour of dialog boxes afterwards. This problem is most pronounced early on, when the game has a lot of exposition and worldbuilding to deliver. But because of the length of the game early on doesn’t mean the first hour or two, or even the first five hours. In fact, the first hour or two doesn’t really suffer this problem. But about two hours in, the plot really gets going, and the gameplay grinds to a halt for about the next ten hours of the experience. It’s a good plot, don’t get me wrong. But when I have to click through thirty minutes of dialog for ten minutes of gameplay, it starts to feel less like an open world JRPG, and more like a visual novel.

"There’s a great experience here, but it’s buried under some strange, and at times downright poor, design. A lot of things just don’t make a whole lot of sense. On their own, none of these issues are all that bad, but taken together they make things a lot less enjoyable than they could be."

There’s other issues that result from this emphasis on exposition. At some points, fast travel will be disabled without warning, and you won’t be allowed to travel between different parts of the map. This can prevent you from completing previous side quests until much, much later, and it results in a game that, while technically open world, feels awfully linear at times. And the side quests are strangely designed. They flip-flop between really easy and absurdly difficult, and often times they feel unnecessary.

There’s a good game hiding inside SAO. The story is great, the world is beautiful, and when the game actually lets you experience it, the combat system is fluid and engaging. But it’s buried behind strange design, long-winded dialog trees, and arbitrary limitations that hold the experience down. If you can overlook these strange choices, you’ll be rewarded with a fun experience. But it’s not for everyone, and the bizarre choices may scare off some players.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.