EW video game review roundup: <em>Anthem</em>, <em>Apex Legends</em>,?and more

With the quality of the voice acting and motion capture, it’s difficult not to imagine the game Anthem could have been as a 30+ hour single player experience instead of a 12-hour half-Destiny half-Mass-Effect mash-up.In a few months, Anthem will probably be a much more streamlined and enjoyable experience. Other BR games like Call of Duty’s Blackout mode have classes, but Apex Legends one-ups its competition by emphasizing its Legends’ differing personalities and abilities, not just their loadouts.Apex Legends is not just a new type of BR game, it’s blazing the trail that other games in the genre will follow. Now here’s the long answer.At its best, Far Cry New Dawn offers more of what was so wild from Far Cry 5, a fun playground in which to reclaim outposts from the Highwaymen (the new “Peggies”), go on missions with familiar characters, and enjoy some of the new upgrades: you’re now able to slap together B-A-N-A-N-A-S weaponry like the sawblade crossbow, and embark on Expeditions, which chopper you to different parts of America to extract packages for side missions.At its worst, it feels more like a fancy DLC, perhaps something to capitalize on the record-breaking sales of Far Cry 5 instead of offering something more substantive. Despite that natural beauty, there are moments when the pacing of the game’s storytelling trips over the open world, and travel can feel like a roadblock to progression rather than a path toward it.Some of that discomfort is no doubt by design. A throwback to the handheld tactical games of yore, it’s an experience that knows exactly what it is and who it’s for, and it succeeds by layering personality and a fully featured map editor on top of a tried and true strategic foundation.Like Advance Wars, Wargroove’s action is turn-based grid combat, and battles involve capturing settlements, purchasing reinforcements, and achieving map dominance.