In 2019, Infinity Ward rebooted Call of Duty's Modern Warfare series, delivering a gritty and polished campaign featuring Captain Price and the assembly of the iconic Task Force 141. Despite the strong start, the series' sequels stumbled a bit, with  Modern Warfare 3 in particular standing out as having a weak story and open-world missions that missed the mark. But with Modern Warfare 4, Infinity Ward returns the series' campaign to strength with a satisfying narrative and well-crafted missions for an epic conclusion to the rebooted series.

Modern Warfare 4's single-player goes back to being a traditional and mostly linear experience that some recent entries have strayed from. There is only one open-world mission this year, and it is far more engaging than the previous attempts. Modern Warfare 4 doesn't introduce anything new or innovative, but it finds success with a consistently strong narrative and engaging gameplay built on nail-biting tension. Thankfully, you're never forced into any mission objectives that feel like silly chores or ill-timed distractions. Every mission in Modern Warfare 4 carries urgency and drives the plot forward.

That plot closes out the ongoing narrative surrounding Price and Task Force 141, but it also takes Call of Duty to Korea and introduces a fresh new cast of characters. The campaign intertwines two seemingly separate stories for an over-the-top, globetrotting affair across New York City, Paris, and Mumbai, in addition to several parts of Korea. This is the explosive Hollywood-style action you'd expect from a Call of Duty campaign at a quality level we haven't seen from the franchise in years--that includes the recent Black Ops entries.

One half of the game places you in the boots of Private Park, a young South Korean soldier, who has never experienced real combat before. Private Park and his squad are forced to fight back to save their country when North Korea launches an invasion.

The other half of the campaign follows the events of Modern Warfare 3 and the aftermath of John "Soap" MacTavish's death. In Modern Warfare 4, Captain Price is in a much darker place, going rogue to hunt down Makarov and also tie up any other loose ends with the villain's associates.

This new outlaw version of Price ties back to one of the most-telling quotes of Modern Warfare 2019, where he lays out his ethos on where the lines in war are."You draw the line wherever you need it, Sergeant," Price says. "End of the day, someone has to make the enemy scared of the dark. We get dirty and the world stays clean. That's the mission."

That line is seemingly in a place no one could have foreseen, as Price is furious and more willing than ever to get his hands dirty in pursuit of making everyone allied with Makarov scared of the dark. Being on the run leaves Price with very few allies, though. In a desperate attempt to reach the Archer (Mads Mikkelsen), who is another threat linked to Makarov, Price makes a deal with Valeria Garza and the cartel.

Price hasn't turned into a complete monster, but the cartel don't mind blasting through civilians in order to achieve their mission. This team-up makes for chaotic gunfights through Paris and engaging banter between the characters. Price is constantly trying to look out for civilians and wants to minimize the collateral damage, but Valeria just comically taunts him, calling him Papi and old man, as she operates with less strict rules. The extent to which Price is a co

Street Fighter has long been more than just a fighting game. It’s impossible to discuss the most popular video game characters of all time without mentioning Chun-Li, Ryu, or Ken. For many of us, it shaped our '90s childhood at the arcade and served as our introduction to the fighting-game genre. It also has inspired multiple movies, comic books, an anime series and manga, on top of endless collaborations with other fighting game and comic book franchises.

Street Fighter's massive popularity is also a curse when it comes to live-action video game adaptations: 1994's Street Fighter and 2009's Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li were poorly received, despite both films having big budgets and being hyped among fans. The franchise failing twice as live-action films was an embarrassment to Capcom, so it's no surprise fans would be concerned about a third attempt at creating a decent live-action film.

When Kitao Sakurai was announced as the Street Fighter director, fans were both excited and concerned about him taking reins due to a history of working closely with Eric Andre. There was hope though, especially with the positive reception of a few other video game adaptations in the last few years: Perhaps the experience of Andre’s eccentric style of comedy could mean a more unconventional approach, similar to Zach Cregger’s approach with Resident Evil? Maybe the casting mix of Andre, pro wrestlers, martial artists, and, for some reason, podcaster Andrew Schulz could produce a very chaotic live-action comedy? Unfortunately, the questions around the movie's identity are ultimately what hurt the adaptation the most because, even with  cartoonish action and plenty of attempts at humor, this Street Fighter movie doesn't really figure out what it is. 

As with many other adaptations of Street Fighter, Ken is rich and famous, but he is also a shell of the fighter he once was--Ryu's absence has clearly taken its toll. Noah Centineo encapsulates Ken’s flashy personality and inflated ego excellently, while showcasing his more fragile and sensitive side as he reminisces about his past life with Ryu. Meanwhile, Ryu is now living in the shadows as a homeless ramen chef. Andrew Koji as Ryu is also fantastic casting: His serious and noble demeanor, even when it comes to making terrible ramen, feels natural. The first act of Street Fighter is engaging thanks to its focus on Ken and Ryu’s relationship. Their individual personality quirks should have set the tone for the rest of the film, but sadly it starts to have an identity crisis when it transitions to the main plot.

Don’t get me wrong--there are still many aspects of the film that capture the essence of the Street Fighter games: vibrant and thrilling fight scenes, cheesy dialogue, and some initially questionable casting choices that finally make sense after seeing the movie, especially Noah Centineo's Ken Masters. Street Fighter also immediately captivates you. Shortly after the Capcom logo hypes up the audience, the film transitions to a beautifully animated sequence that highlights the deep bond between Ryu and Ken. The animated sequences are the best Street Fighter has ever looked on screen, and luckily these scenes become a staple throughout the film to highlight the history between the two young fighters.

Once the opening credits are over, the film continues to learn into '90s nostalgia with cool environments and oddly endearing comedic moments, as it depicts Ken living his life in 1993 without Ryu, his childhood rival and sworn brother who has been missing for years. Ken and Ryu’s last moment together was witnessing the death of their master, Gouken, by the deity Akuma, who was awakened by Ryu’s powers in the first World Warrior Tournament. Haunt

When playing Castlevania: Belmont's Curse, I couldn't stop thinking about Symphony of the Night. Almost 30 years ago, that game reinvented Castlevania as a search-action game, and did it so brilliantly that it earned half of the "metroidvania" portmanteau. Belmont's Curse does not attempt such a dramatic shift. It doesn't change genres or reinvent the series as something entirely new. What it does, however, is achieve a brilliant synthesis, with every component operating at peak performance to deliver a new high for the series. Castlevania is back, and it is fantastic.

Put simply, Belmont's Curse is the total package. A sprawling map bursting with mysteries to uncover, joyous traversal tools that make roaming the map feel great, a story that balances a macabre tone with occasional lightness, a cast of creative and well-drawn characters, and hands-down the best combat of any Castlevania game--in fact, among the best combat of any 2D action game, period.

What makes all of these synergize so well is the addition of the tarot cards, which serve as an elegant way to fuse the game's disparate elements, and makes them all feel like part of one cohesive whole. At different points your tarot deck serves as mission signposting, environmental puzzles, pieces of story lore, characters to serve as dialogue for Rose, boss locations, and ultimately, your pool of spells.

You play as Rose Belmont, daughter of Trevor Belmont, who has trained her whole life as the successor of the Belmont clan. Though silver-maned Trevor is still a capable fighter, Rose volunteers to investigate the otherworldly happenings in Paris, France, eager to prove herself worthy of the family name. But Rose is also afflicted with a cursed red mark on one arm, making her dangerously instrumental to the machinations of Dracula and his armies. 

The tarot deck is a set of magical cards gifted to Rose by her late mother, Sypha, who passed on the curse to her at birth. Each card represents a follower of Dracula, with honorific names like The Fallen, The Warrior, or The Builder. As you explore the castle you find clues that reveal story details and hints about how to find them, often both simultaneously, and they each have their own roles in Dracula's royal court. When Dracula's castle emerges in the heart of Paris--as you obviously knew it would, this is a Castlevania game, after all--the full deck is revealed, putting the complete array of monsters in your sights. Once you've tracked down and defeated one of Dracula's servants, their tarot card becomes an Arcana you can use as a spell, which then opens its own flexible progression system. It may sound complex, but the system is actually an ingenious way to merge different gameplay elements and make them all feel digestible and cohesive.

As an example, take the first boss, The Fallen. Finding him is a relatively simple task, given that it'

The soulslike genre has been around long enough now that it's easy to pick out its most recognizable traits. Whether it's managing stamina in combat, the risk of losing progression with each death, health items and enemies that respawn when you reach a bonfire, lantern, or some other recognizable checkpoint; all of the best in the genre adapt these in their own distinct ways. 

Valor Mortis is no different, but attempts to stand out through its shift in perspective. By moving the action to a first-person view, Valor Mortis affords itself novelty, which works well with snappy and satisfying combat that rewards deft parries and patience in equal measure. But it's also marred by a weak story and sluggishly paced opening hours that betray the more captivating moments in its second half, where Valor Mortis' most interesting narrative beats and combat encounters finally deliver on some of the potential you can see being established in the hours prior.

You play as William Dowsett, a very British-sounding member of Napoleon's army who returns from the dead only to find former allies taken over by corruption sweeping across Europe. The corruption has twisted people; large red boils replace the heads of riflemen, infantrymen have their spines snapped as they are transformed into grotesque and rabid attack dogs, and piles of bodies have become living masses of flesh that slowly crawl toward you when you least expect it. It's a familiar world that has been transformed into a nightmare for William as he attempts to reconnect with missing comrades and understand how the war has found itself in this state, leading him to answers that will likely be far less surprising for you as a player.

Valor Mortis' story is frustratingly straightforward, and wastes a setting so rarely used in action games. William's slow realization that the war he's been waging on behalf of the bloodthirsty Napoleon Bonaparte might not be as noble as he assumed is annoyingly drawn out for how predictable it is. It's hard to get invested with a main character who has little more going for him than verbalizing his disgust over the consequences of a war he so recently was proud to be a part of, blissfully ignorant to the horrors he was unleashing on innocent citizens along the way. Conversations with the game's supporting cast don't help either, with none making a lasting impression. 

Once Valor Mortis starts exploring the villages and cities besieged by Bonaparte and his corrupted forces, there are more compelling stories to discover. You'll come across brief echoes that capture fleeting conversations from the past, distilling short but often heartbreaking stories. They effectively convey the desperation some civilians endured when faced with a foreign, oppressive force taking over their day-to-day lives. There's an entire city filled with orphans who scurry around underground tunnels, and another nearly entirely underwater after a heinous war crime extinguished a rebellion without care for civilian casualties. They're effective at contextualizing why so much of the world around you is desolate and broken without having to see those events play out, and they do a great job of making you hate an antagonist you'll hardly ever see.

It's frustrating that it takes a while to get here, however, with many of Valor Mortis' opening hours taking place across battlefields that, while twisted by the corruption around them, ultimately blend together in forgettable ways. These areas are almost strictly linear, with clear paths from beginning to end and only slight detours to explore. Around the halfway mark, this monotonous world design flips around entirely--you move from abandoned villages to burning cities and down into labyrinthine catacombs beneath an eerily e

Capcom choosing the exact same subtitle for two separate expansions in two different games makes a lot of sense. Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is not only a thematically relevant title, but thanks to the first game's expansion of the same name, it also conveys to longtime fans what to expect: namely, a new gameplay cycle focused on reworked loot and plenty of dungeon crawling. The key difference this time around is that instead of heading into the labyrinthine depths of a cursed island, you've got an entirely new region to explore.  

As someone who loved Dragon's Dogma 2, I couldn't really ask for much more. Yet changes to some of the game's core systems also dilute what made it so unique when it launched back in 2024. I know it's always been a fairly divisive game, and these changes are intended to make the experience more approachable, but they also strip away some of its magic in an effort to appeal to more people. Dark Arisen is still a great expansion, transporting you to a fascinating new region with more loot to earn, fantastical beasts to slay, and stories to behold, but it also shifts Dragon's Dogma 2 in a slightly different direction. 

To start with, Dark Arisen alleviates some of the game's intentional friction by reducing how often you need to travel on foot. The Eternal Ferrystone was already added to the game a few months ago, letting you freely fast travel to any portcrystal without expending a scarce resource. Those same portcrystals are located at every key location in Dark Arisen's new Norgan region. You still have to reach them on foot first to activate them, but once you do, you can simply teleport from one side of the map to the other. 

Using the Eternal Ferrystone is entirely optional; you can still traverse almost all of Norgan on foot if you desire,