Diablo 4: Lord Of Hatred Review-In-Progress - Mother Knows Best

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Two things can be said of Diablo IV leading up to the release of Lord of Hatred: First and foremost, as a series, Diablo has never been in a better or more promising place. Secondly, the game's first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, was a bit of a letdown following a tremendous first act. With those things in mind, it's safe to say that there are very high expectations for the game's forthcoming expansion. And, if the stakes weren't high enough, Lord of Hatred also carries with it two promises: a first look at the long-teased and highly-awaited land of Skovos, and an epic conclusion to the game's ongoing Hatred Saga--one featuring a major showdown with the Lord of Hatred himself.

Oftentimes, expectations and promises only pave the way for disappointment. Fortunately, that's not the case with Lord of Hatred. Diablo IV's latest expansion triumphs at maintaining the series' momentum while also delivering a powerful gut punch of a third act--one that weaves together years of events and lore to create the series' most-compelling narrative to date. Lord of Hatred offers both a spectacular conclusion to the Hatred Saga and plenty of changes that grant it greater longevity than ever before, including two powerhouse classes, plenty of improvements, and strong endgame content.

Lord of Hatred picks up not long after the events of Vessel of Hatred, which ultimately saw Mephisto take over the body of Akarat--a messiah-like figure in the Diablo universe. Through using Akarat's kindly visage, his own manipulative tactics, and performing "miracles," Mephisto has quickly managed to convince much of Sanctuary's population that he is a force for good--one who possesses the power to not only purify their lands, but their very souls as well. Even the most cunning of warriors find themselves in his thrall, their desperation for a better world ultimately contorting them into gullible disciples. As such, you, The Wanderer, and your faithful companions, Lorath and Neyrelle, come to be viewed as dissenting pariahs. And the fact that a demon's blood flows through your veins certainly doesn't help your case against the fraudulent prophet.

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Vampire Crawlers Review - Pixel-Perfect Pandemonium

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"Okay, just one more run."

This is the phrase I've muttered at midnight--and then again at 2 AM--every day since diving into Vampire Crawlers. There are nights when it feels like it'd take an army to pull me from the clutches of its pixelated chaos. This deckbuilding spin-off to indie roguelike Vampire Survivors is every bit as gripping as that original outing, bringing both familiarity and freshness wrapped up into a first-person dungeon-crawling adventure.

I love that Vampire Crawlers maintains an undying commitment to the tone, characters, and retro visuals of its predecessor. It's evident even from the initial cutscene, which shows a returning character fending off hordes of attackers in the Mad Forest from Survivors' isometric view before transitioning to a first-person view of the area. Without using a single word, it proudly declares that a new perspective doesn't change the fact that this is still unquestionably Vampire Survivors at its core.

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Mouse: P.I. For Hire Review - Rodent Noir

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There's no shortage of boomer shooters out there for those looking for some retro-style first-person action: Cultic, Ion Fury, Prodeus, and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, just to name a few. Yet only one of these nostalgic shooters meshes the genre's arcade sensibilities with the black-and-white rubber-hose visuals of cartoons from the 1920s and '30s and the unmistakable trappings of film noir.

Originally released as a tech demo that quickly went viral in 2023, Mouse: P.I. For Hire is now a fully-fledged game--one that oozes style and doesn't lack substance either. It's both familiar and incredibly niche at the same time; an endlessly charming game that I found a joy to simply behold, even before the cartoon bullets started flying.

Unsurprisingly for a game about furry rodents, Mouse: P.I. is all too fond of cheese-based puns and wordplay, so it makes sense that you should slip into the stylish trenchcoat of one Jack Pepper. The titular P.I. is a former war hero-turned-private dick working on a missing-persons case. As is par for the course, the investigation quickly spirals out of control, escalating into a complex web of intrigue and corruption that spreads to every sleazy corner of the city of Mouseburg.

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Pragmata Review - Capcom's Next Great Franchise

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You don't see games like Pragmata very often.

Big-budget single-player shooters aren't as common as they once were, and even more rarely do they launch new franchises. They often come with trade-offs--a game might nail the fundamentals, or have some surprising new hook, or have a resonant story, but rarely do you get all of them at once. Pragmata is the total package, a blend of tense and satisfying combat elevated by deep underlying mechanics and strategic choices, all in service of telling an impactful tale that spends time nurturing the relationship between its memorable characters. It's one of my unexpected surprises of 2026 so far and an early shoo-in for one of my favorites of the year.

You play as Hugh Williams, an everyman astronaut dispatched to a corporate medical research colony on the moon. There's an eerie stillness to the base that suggests something isn't quite right, but before you and your crew have any time to investigate, a moonquake rocks the base and leaves you as the only survivor. Now stranded and beset by legions of hostile robots, you're befriended by a mysterious android girl who helps you to survive by hacking the otherwise near-invincible robots. When she tries to give her alphanumeric name, Hugh calls her Diana to make it easier, and the two are joined at the hip from that point forward.

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Pokemon Champions Review - The Battle Frontier

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Pokemon's turn-based combat can be best described as an inch wide and a mile deep. Its rock-paper-scissors style is easy to understand, but below the murky surface lies an entirely different game. Moves that may seem useless at first glance take on a different meaning in a competitive setting, where complicated stat spreads are tweaked ever-so-slightly to maximize a Pokemon's efficiency and a constantly evolving meta-game makes it hard to nail down which strategies are viable and which aren't. Toss in over 1,000 unique monsters that can be trained in hundreds of thousands of different ways, and you're left with arguably the most impenetrable competitive video game scene of all time.

For decades, Pokemon's competitive scene was just that: a near-impenetrable experience that requires hundreds of hours--and hundreds of dollars--to keep up with. Pokemon Champions is The Pokemon Company's attempt to bring white-knuckled, competitive battling to the masses. The financial barrier to entry, at least ostensibly, is low thanks to its free-to-play model, and the snappy stat-training mechanics reduce a lot of friction. However, Pokemon Champions lacks the necessary onboarding to captivate a new audience while also giving clear advantages to players who've invested in Pokemon Home. In its current state, Pokemon Champions falls just short of being the be-all and end-all of competitive play that I hoped for.

Despite Pokemon Champions' lackluster onboarding, there are a lot of tutorials. When you first start up the game, you're introduced to a cast of characters who teach you how to battle, obtain Pokemon, and build a team. Assuming you don't skip any dialogue, it takes roughly 30 minutes before you're set loose. From there, you can battle online, train Pokemon, build teams, or continue with supplementary tutorials. I opted to do the latter.

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This Turn-Based RPG Musical Is Fun But Drags A Bit In Act 3 | People Of Note Review

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People of Note was clearly made with lots of love, but it is also a deeply silly game. Conflicts are resolved between musicians flinging music at each other, a simple country-wide road trip transforms into a battle to save all of reality, and somehow everyone is convinced that the power of friendship will somehow overcome an ancient eldritch-like power. If I didn't know any better, I'd think this game was an old-school role-playing game. And, to be fair, People of Note shares a lot of parallels with those games. While that means the strengths of those types of games are present in People of Note--notably the music and world design in its case--it also means that some of the shortcomings that can be found in the weaker installments of the genre are present in Iridium Studios' turn-based RPG too.

People of Note sees would-be pop star Cadence striving to fulfill her dream of winning a singing competition and getting propelled into fame. Worried that the pop song she's prepared isn't strong enough to sway the judges, she sets out through the land of Note in search of people who can add to her song. Her journey takes her to a desert where everyone is all about different kinds of rock music, a futuristic metropolis blanketed in perpetual night and inhabited by EDM-obsessed disc jockeys, a block-shaped party city that's all about rap and hip hop, and so much more. And all the while, repeated references to an event known as the Harmonic Convergence steel you for what will eventually be a sharp tonal shift away from road-trip comedy to dramatic high fantasy.

Your enjoyment of this story is really going to come down to how much you like puns and pop culture references--People of Note's humor is not unlike Borderlands 2 or Saints Row IV. The game rides the line between funny and corny well enough for me, save for one moment in the third act that made me cringe so hard, I contemplated simply not playing any more of the game that day. But I also enjoy games like Borderlands and Saints Row. If you're not a fan of the idea of a story that takes every single conceivable musical term and crafts a whole high-fantasy society and plotline with said terms, People of Note is probably going to grate.

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This Fun New Puzzle-Platformer Is Limbo, But Not Creepy | Darwin's Paradox Review

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Darwin's Paradox takes the 2D puzzle-platforming sensibilities of a game like Limbo or Inside and makes it distinctly less creepy and unsettling. Whereas those games presented elements of light body horror and spooky high-contrast compositions, Darwin's Paradox evokes classic cartoons starring goofball protagonists in vibrant, colorful settings. The result is a pleasant little gem of a game with loads of variety that makes the most out of its relatively short playtime.

There's a core comedic premise to Darwin's Paradox that begins subtly and then slowly becomes more obvious as time goes on. Your eponymous little octopus, Darwin, just wants to get back home to the ocean. But on his journey he haplessly bumbles his way through what is clearly a full-scale alien invasion of Earth. In most games, the hero would steel their resolve to take on the alien menace, but Darwin is just an octopus. For all he knows, this is normal among land-dwellers, and he doesn't really seem to care either way. So he's less of a hero and more of a Mr. Magoo, with his own perception limited to the threats around him as he gets flung around a hostile world and just tries his best to survive. We as the (human) viewers understand what's happening in a different context than he does, and that makes the story work on two levels at once.

Though he's not a hero, Darwin certainly has an expansive move set, which makes the game's platforming feel natural and fluid. They all trace back to the behaviors and adaptations of real-life octopi, like suckers to stick to walls, shooting ink to escape predators, and camouflage to blend in with their environment. And like a real octopus, he's most mobile underwater, where you have full 360-degree freedom of movement. Though traversing your way through land environments feels good, going underwater is immediately more natural. It really accentuates the feeling that you're a fish out of water the rest of the time.

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