XBox One Reviews

Welcome to Empire Bay. I grew up playing the Mafia series on every platform and was so excited for a remaster. Mafia 2 stars Vito Scarletta, a young Italian who wants to live large and make real money. To achieve this, he turns to organized crime. At the start of the game, Vito lives with his mother and sister in a little apartment. When the game starts, Vito is with his best friend Joe Barbaro doing a jewelry heist. As…

It’s the hidden gem of the bus smashin’, double-decker car ridin’, lawnmower racin’ genre – and now Wreckfest has got that shiny next-gen glean to go along with it. Why aren’t more people talking about Wreckfest? It’s not only an awesome game, but it’s right there on Game Pass. Play it on PC, play it on Xbox – but play it. With a new 4K/60FPS patch on Xbox Series X, it’s worth taking another spin around the block. Ready for…

You seek untold riches, eternal life, divine powers – it leads to this accursed temple, a seemingly-infinite labyrinth of bottomless pits, deadly traps, and monsters. Collect mystical Relics and an arsenal of weapons to make yourself unstoppable. Battle through hordes of enemies in dark, cavernous passages filled with traps and secrets of all sorts – fire-spewing statues, explosives, hidden spikes, and worse. Corruption builds in you with every step – encourage or ignore it, but each powerful curse can be…

Hitman 3 gives back what you put into it, and man is it nice to play a game like that again. You can put zero effort into it, taking the path of least resistance and treating it like the action game it clearly isn’t. You’ll ‘finish’ it in about three hours, huff a bit and then move onto something that holds your hand a little more. Or you can see it for what it is: an assassination sandbox filled with…

Summer in Mara is a single-player summer adventure. Take care of your own island, farming the land, and crafting new tools to survive. You can also sail away with your boat to new islands, meet unique characters and find hidden treasures. But the ocean wants you to fulfill your destiny and when it calls you, you’ll have to answer. Summer in Mara is a game about small details that will surprise you every time. Summer in Mara is an adventure…

We didn’t review the Xbox One seven years ago. We didn’t get a preview unit and nobody on staff at the time was interested enough to pick it up day one. Man, what a difference seven years makes, because the Xbox Series X is a triumph. Check out our One Dislike, Three Likes article about the Xbox Series X! This console has been built by gamers for gamers, and it comes through in every interaction you have with it. From…

John Wick Hex really clicked for me when, after clearing a level, I watched it back “in real-time,” versus the time-based strategic puzzle-combat gameplay. Watching the titular hero make his way through a street, punching, rolling, kicking, and shooting adversaries in under 10 seconds is a lot of fun. Of course, 10 seconds in “real-time” translates to about 5 minutes of gameplay, as the player tries to orchestrate all of Wick’s maneuvers.   The game — developed by bithell games…

Puzzles! Romance! Adventure! If Call of the Sea was a story from the 1930s, its advertising would speak entirely in exclamation points – and it’d almost live up to them. It’s filled with brainteasers designed to fairly but frequently trip you up, all on one of the most beautiful islands in gaming. It boasts next-gen features like raytracing, but doesn’t feel the need to overdo them or stray into the dangerous territory of gimmicky. The story is as deep or…

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 – a game title that deserves a Kingdom Hearts style “2.5D Ultima Super Dream Final Edition” if I’ve ever heard one. People know what Tetris is, and a good chunk of those will know what Puyo Puyo is if you explain it in Mean Bean Machine terms. It says what it is, for better or for worse. But hidden behind that slightly mystifying name is a potent mix of puzzling fun that never gets old –…

I’m not sure there’s a more intense single-player racing experience than coming to the end of a long rally stage as the rain starts to spit. The time pops up at the checkpoint and you’re either a second ahead or behind the pace heading into the last stretch. Every time it happens in WRC 9 on Series X, I shift forward in my seat and try my darndest to hit each apex without careening off an edge and down a…