Parents' Guide to Biomutant

While problematic games are usually lost causes, this flawed and absurd open world third-person action-packed role-playing game eventually manages to become a fun and epic adventure. In Biomutant, you play a sentient and bipedal rodent warrior who's either trying to save what's left of the Earth years after an environmental apocalypse wiped out humanity, or you're trying to hasten the world's demise. Either way, you spend your time running around a vast open world, getting into skirmishes with fellow anamorphic animals, running errands, scrounging around for supplies, and generally improving yourself enough to take on bigger enemies. It's a good thing you're not only skilled with guns and melee weapons, but magic-like abilities as well.

What undermines this otherwise solid adventure game is how it's as flawed as it is silly. It takes far too long for you to get weapons that are effective, and even then, your shooting skills are hindered by your inability to look down the barrel of your gun. Then there's the super chatty narrator, who has a penchant for dad jokes and cliché sayings, as well as such silly characters as an Elvis-loving beaver and a giant lizard in pajamas. But everything changes when you finally get weapons that work well. It's then that the skirmishes get exciting, especially since they have you using guns, melee weapons, and magic-like attacks in concert to take out multiple enemies who attack from all sides. The recent release of the game on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S also showcases this world in beautiful 4K for players that have upgraded screens, or at silky smooth frame rates at lower resolutions for the fast paced combat. Add to that a ton of nicely varied missions and puzzles, a wonderfully lush and dangerous world to explore, and numerous ways to customize your weapons (and yourself), and Biomutant finally becomes a sweeping, effortless, and ultimately engaging action-packed adventure.