Video game review: 'Split Fiction' and 'Monster Hunter: Wilds'

Split Fiction

“Split Fiction will go down as one of the most beloved co-op games of this generation,” said Christopher Byrd in The New York Times. A split-screen adventure in which you and a friend play as aspiring writers whose sci-fi and fantasy ideas are coming to life in real time, the Hazelight Studios release delivers so many dazzling spectacles that you happily overlook the predictability of its overarching storyline.

Across eight chapters, players hopscotch among settings that present rising stakes, and while a friend and I were amazed by the final level, an earlier chance to pilot a two-headed insect through various platforming challenges was “an experience unlike any we had encountered before.” Like It Takes Two, Hazelight’s previous hit, Split Fiction demands that players work in tandem, said Ash Parrish in The Verge. At the same time, it’s “forgiving enough that players at different skill levels (say, parent and child) can still play together.” When my husband and I navigated a pinball level with him controlling the ball and me the paddles, “our minds and bodies melded together” and “it was honestly kinda sexy.”

Monster Hunter: Wilds

Monster Hunter: Wilds The newest addition to the 20-year-old Monster Hunter franchise “doesn’t let up for a second,” said Keza MacDonald in The Guardian. For the first 15 hours, it’s “all killer, no filler,” and “a far cry from the ponderous older games” as you engage in “incomparably thrilling” battles with a series of ferocious creatures, including a giant spider, a fire-ape, and an electrified wyvern that you can wear down only by calling on “every trick you know.” Better yet, the game “can’t be reduced to a series of fights”— because its greatest awards arrive once you become a student of its subtleties and a mentor to other players.

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Wilds is easily “the best Monster Hunter campaign ever,” said Jake Green in TechRadar. “Streamlined and punchy,” it’s entirely gimmick-free, “with the headline feature being the seamless open world.” Once I was freed of the demands of the game’s battles, “I spent hours simply riding through each region,” watching pink-furred apes snooze in the sun, huge raptors circle above, and leaf-cutting ants march in formation. “You can practically hear David Attenborough narrating the whole thing.”