Hitman Review

Diverse, open-ended level design makes for one of the most exciting stealth games to date

By: Ryan Ramakrishnan

Reviewed on Xbox One

“Hitman” (2016) allowed IO Interactive to bring back the sandbox style of missions for the stealth series, allowing players to make several choices in how to complete their objectives and succeed at making it a deep and memorable gameplay experience.

With a bevy of choices in how to execute the many assassinations presented, “Hitman” wonderfully uses its sandbox level design in each of the episodic missions to provide a surprisingly lengthy experience, one that is as nerve wracking and entertaining as ever before. Its story is far from important or compelling, with the exception of one or two moments, making the gameplay take full priority. “Hitman” ultimately uses the risky episodic format to full effect in terms of that gameplay, providing players with several open-ended experiences, each worth a revisit.

Transformers: Devastation Review

Exciting combat and style suffer from confusingly useless ideas

By: Ryan Ramakrishnan

Reviewed on PlayStation 4

Both the voices and visuals of the “Transformers” cartoons of the past make their way into Platinum’s “Transformers: Devastation,” making for an iconic experience, one that has plenty of fun action to partake in, despite a repetitive nature.

“Transformers: Devastation” comes packed with impressive visuals, music and voice acting, all of which delightfully re-create the likes of cartoons in the “Transformers” franchise. Gameplay is quite good too thanks the action packed, combo-based combat Platinum Games is known for. Unfortunately, the game suffers from a little repetition in its combat and its ambitious systems fall short.