Baldur’s Gate III (Larian)
The ambition of tabletop role-playing games has always been limited only by the imagination of the players and the patience of the game master. Their video game counterpart imposed its technical limits. Baldur’s Gate III almost blows them all away and has become the new benchmark in the eyes of many fans of the genre. It is necessary to underline the balance found between the central scenario, varied and engaging characters, combat taking turns that are nevertheless convincing and a visual finish that will take your breath away or, in any case, make your HDMI cables heat up. If there’s a role-playing game to get this Christmas, on console, on PC or even on Mac, this is it.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo)
Link and Zelda are perhaps the modern-day Tristan and Isolde. Nintendo has certainly prepared them in every way over the past almost 40 years. Yet, Tears of the Kingdom pushes the limits of a universe that we have still not finished exploring. Already that Breath of the Wildthe previous opus, had seduced with its open world, TOTK enlarges it, adds a simple but effective narrative and adds just enough distractions and parallel action to fuel several dozen hours of video game pleasure.
Super Mario RPG (Nintendo)
The original released in 1996 quickly became a classic on the Nintendo platform and its new version, which went on sale just last month, will allow a new generation of young gamers to visit a virtual world that still has some deep roots deep into the 16-bit graphics of the mid-1990s. A great video game sage once said that arousing emotion was the final frontier of digital. Super Mario RPG flirts with it and pushes it away from time to time, without tiring the player, who dictates the rhythm of the game in the purest tradition of role-playing games.
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR (Ubisoft)
Video game exegetes will prefer to sing the praises ofAssassin’s Creed Mirage. For a change, let’s instead offer its virtual reality counterpart. Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR requires owning a Meta Quest headset, but if we take that in reverse, we can say that Ubisoft Assassins are one of the best reasons to buy such a headset between now and Christmas. We smile, we cry, we are surprised, we surprise ourselves by getting into the action a lot more intensely than in front of a television or a computer screen… and we revisit three historical eras as if we had invented the machine to travel in time.
Fortnite (Epic Games)
Ah! Purists will turn up their noses at this new universe of Fortnite put online in early December by Epic Games. Because we no longer play the same way. For Epic, this is an opportunity to attract 100 million more players thanks to its immersive digital environment. They may not all be keen on the more classic multiplayer competition, and they could try their luck in the Lego version of Fortniteor go beat the time of popular songs, like Rock band. There are also car races on board, because why not. Something for everyone, in other words, in time to spread the word to Santa…