What's worse, they did extensive pre-release testing to work out the networking part of the game. And you know what, when you're able to get into a match, it works wonderfully. It's just that my average time between matches so far has been around 10 minutes or more. At least they finally got the part where you can…

Which makes it especially weird that they brought it back for one of the Oracle games.

And besides straight-up repeats, we disqualified items that were copies with different names and/or slightly changed purposes. Gust Jar to Gust Bellows. Mole mitts to digging mitts. Magic Hammer to Megaton Hammer to Skull Hammer. Etc.

Marrying Mr. Darcy was actually supposed to be included in this article, but Samantha wasn't able to get a review copy in time. It might pop up in something later.

I agree that it's more of a "premiere," but yes, it's as Derrick says. Wasn't my choice of word for the headline, though.

Yeah, and it makes the question of "reviewing" games especially tricky. Do you publish a review at Early Access launch or final launch? Logic dictates the latter and that's what we've always done, but it's still not quite right. It makes more sense to spotlight something at its true debut, but it's not right to…

I think it's definitely going to resonate with certain people and completely repel others. In terms of value or whatever, I think the one thing a lot of people don't realize is that this is a MASSIVE game. A single playthrough is all you'd need and is going to last you a long time. It's probable that when you reach…

There's a lot more going on in this game than can be ascertained from the rudimentary explanations, but there's a very good reason why John and other critics are avoiding spelling it out. As John alludes, epiphany is the whole point, and that's rendered meaningless if you go in knowing what to look for and expect.

I hope I didn't get anyone's hopes up too high with my praise for the Dropsy OST. For my musical tastes (I'm a jazz fan), it's been a shockingly complex, moving bit of composition. It has that odd emotional range I described, and at the same time evokes this jazzy day-in-the-city/sleepy end-of-a-night-on-the-town kind…

Ding ding ding. Just weird timing.

RANT INCOMING:
As the staff's resident NJPW fanatic, I have to say I'm trying to remain open-minded, but the more I think about it, the sadder I get about Shinsuke. You can't blame any of them for taking the deal—especially the Bullet Club guys.

The theme's not quite what you think it is, though most of the songs do fit this mold.

According to Kojima, it "looks like a medieval knight and also a space suit" because it "expresses the vision of aiming the new world with the latest technology and pioneering spirit."

Yeah, that's two hours for one of the several campaigns. Each can be played as a whole or split into any of the individual scenarios that comprise them.

Unpleasant: The homogenization of big-budget games into one flat expanse of open-world goop.

That seems to very much be the Souls approach to endings, doesn't it? There aren't really clear-cut good and bad outcomes. They just…are.

We didn't get a review copy until last Monday, one day before release. And besides, it's an online game—and, ostensibly, a BATTLEFIELD one at that. Hard to render a verdict without playing it after release in real conditions.

That's awesome. I found a special laser rifle with infinite clip, too. Swapped an automatic barrel onto that thing, and hooooo boy. It's nuts.

Absolutely! It's there. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I feel like they're too few and far between.