Anthony Shelton

The Last Friend is like chicken and waffles. It combines two unlikely genres — tower defense and beat ‘em up — and creates a surprisingly balanced amalgamation. It lacks depth and needs a better story, but this is the way I want to play tower defense from now on.

I reviewed Back 4 Blood on the Series X but decided to review Tunnels of Terror on PC to avoid the console version’s poor aim assist. That meant playing on a version with hardly anything unlocked. You might think it’s unfair to assess new content on a virtually brand new account, and I can understand that sentiment, but I can confidently say it doesn’t matter if you’re brand new or experienced. Besides new characters and Ridden, Tunnels of Terror doesn’t give new players content worth engaging with, and it’s practically pointless for veterans. Each piece of content is individually exciting but mostly a waste of time as a package.

Battlefield 2042 is full of irony. This franchise has focused on small squads working together within larger battles since its creation, but 2042 gives you two assault specialists that can zip around better than anyone else and the rest of the squad can’t keep up. There’s a new mode that’s all about cooperation. 2042 will launch with no voice chat. There is an exciting, new custom games creator. People use it to create their preferred way to play. Battlefield 2042 is chaotic and barren. It’s liberating and constricting. It’s a team game and feels like a solo shooter. It’s buggy. There’s no ‘and’ to go with that. This modern war shooter has an identity crisis and that has created a Battlefield that isn’t worth checking out at launch.

New World is one of the most confounding MMO's. It's equally frustrating and fascinating. It's exasperating yet compelling. It draws you in, then pushes you out. There is so much wrong with New World, but it is magically - I genuinely mean magically - held up by possibility; the kind of hope that urges you to open your refrigerator for the fifth time hoping food magically appears. It's a world that feels good to play in but too many outdated and flawed design choices eat away all of New World's goodwill.

As soon as you boot up Just Dance 2022, it immediately feels like Ubisoft is phoning it in. It's the exact same interface as Just Dance 2021, which is the same as 2020, which is the same as 2019. Ubisoft has gone from trying to compel you to buy Just Dance every year, to knowing it will sell as reliably as sports giants like Madden and FIFA, so the developers only have to nail the choreography and song choices while they try to entice you to join its subscription service. Surprisingly, Just Dance 2022 does brings choreography that's the best it's ever been and includes unexpected jams that make you want to jump up and dance. It's unquestionably the best Just Dance in a long time.

Turtle Rock Studios tries to reach back into its history and grab the joy of shooting zombies and retool it as a modern-day spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead. For the most part, Back 4 Blood is a fun multiplayer game with friends or randoms, but it can get unusually boring. Most of what makes Back 4 Blood end up feeling tired comes from a repetitive, plodding first half of the game, a useless story, and a solo mode that doesn't challenge you enough or reward you at all. But by the end, you see the best levels Back 4 Blood has to offer and I had fun shooting zombies with guns that feel great.

If any of the Soulsborne games were a 2D side-scrolling run and gun, I’d probably enjoy them a lot more. Steel Assault is that tough-as-nails, trial by error kind of platformer, and its style is inspired by old-school, wallet-draining 90’s arcade games like Metal Slug, but also features influences from Contra. A few clunky mechanics and hard to distinguish graphics make Steel Assault tougher than it should be, but the high-wire difficulty, retro sounds, and short length more than make up for any downsides.

When Super Mario All-Stars debuted on the Super Nintendo, the box art illustrated Mario dressed in a tuxedo and a magic wand in hand. It showed how special and magical the collection was meant to be. That magic continued by updating Super Mario Bros., The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3 to match Super Mario World's sounds and aesthetic. That’s not the case for Super Mario 3D All-Stars, the 35th anniversary collection featuring Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy. The box art is just the three games with their respective box art merely cropped to fit the Nintendo Switch case. And none of the games feature any notable redesigns or makeovers. There's just enough spit rubbed in to make sure each game works on the Switch and aren't abject eyesores on modern TV's. Each game remains great, but Nintendo's effort to make their second All-Star collection special is pathetic.

Many people believe Xbox looks bad because of the way Microsoft is handling its first-party exclusives. I don’t believe that, but it’s not difficult to understand why others feel that way. Microsoft has only three recognizable exclusive franchises – Halo, Forza, and Gears of War. Four Xbox first-party exclusives have launched since the Series S|X came out – Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Psychonauts 2, Flight Simulator — and all of them have been available on the Xbox One. Throw in Starfield and Redfall’s delays and that leaves 2022 void of first-party launches and a bigger dent in Microsoft’s image.

After reading about season nine for The Division 2, I felt nostalgic. The Division 2 isn’t a looter shooter I play often, but when I do I devote an unhealthy number of hours in a short time. I thought about playing again – even starting a third character – but I remembered most of the tiny number of players remaining were completing endgame activities in New York or Washington D.C., on the two highest difficulties. If I tried matchmaking for missions, I wouldn’t find anyone, and matchmaking is my favorite part of The Division 2. I realized Ubisoft should make The Division 3.

An attempt to improve eUnited’s Halo roster turned into a mess that will likely split the team before Halo Infinite’s World Championship in October. Tyler “Spartan” Ganza announced he benched himself in protest of eUnited’s management and because he doesn’t want to play with Ryan “RyaNoob” Geddes. His statement reveals eUnited’s dysfunction, naïveté concerning sports business and indicates mistrust between teammates.

343 recently fined Tyler “Spartan” Ganza, a player for eUnited. We finally learned why after eight days, but this situation presented this topic: professionalism. Many say Tyler was unprofessional. Tashi, the Halo Esports and Viewership Lead for 343, called the manner in which Tyler delivered his criticisms of Halo Infinite unprofessional.

Fans of Halo Infinite aren’t happy with its current state, and pros aren’t happy either. But no pro is more enraged than Eunited’s Tyler “Spartan” Ganza.

Imagine dropping into a giant arena with 12 other Spartans. You’re alone – lone wolf and all that. You have six lives and start with the Disruptor and MK50 Sidekick pistols. Your goal? Be the last Spartan standing. That objective, combined with the molasses pace, makes Last Spartan Standing a sincerely inferior way to play Halo. It doesn’t commit to being the miniature BR it clearly draws its inspiration from. Its only value is for those who enjoy constant close quarter tension and dominating a single space.

The current complaint – maybe conceit – is that Overwatch 2 doesn’t feel different. Our own Ben Lombardo said in his preview “it does feel this could’ve been an update to Overwatch.” He likes the beta, and others do too, but saying it feels like Overwatch 2 is missing the point. If you’re saying it feels like Overwatch, Blizzard did their job correctly.

343 Industries delivered new content to Halo: The Master Chief Collection that brings the Flood to Halo 3: ODST’s Firefight mode and campaign co-op to Halo 3 and ODST. The update is available today and features loads of additional content as part of 343’s commitment to continued content additions to the legacy Halo package.

“The Publishing Team at 343 Industries is dedicated to helping build and maintain the MCC, and over the last few years they have worked tirelessly to help fix pesky bugs, re

Ubisoft announced the end for Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s live service. A statement was released in an image posted on the Ghost Recon Twitter that didn’t explicitly say development was ending but alluded to the end of content production stating: “The last four months marked the release of our final piece of content: the brand new Operation Motherland mode…” Ubisoft assured players that servers for Breakpoint would remain online and function for solo or co-op would continue. Ghost Recon Wildlands, the first open-world adaptation of the military franchise that launched about two years before Breakpoint, would also stay online.

Here it is. Another Super Smash Bros. knock-off. This is MultiVersus, where Warner Bros. characters fight in friendly, cartoony, chaotic brawls. Batman and Superman are in it. Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil are here. Shaggy and Velma are participating. Tom and Jerry, Jake, Finn, Arya, and many others join the fray. It’s a good list so far and more will come, but I can confidently say this about MultiVersus even though it’s a closed beta: MultiVersus will be the Smash knock-off.