Highwater is a post-apocalyptic tactical narrative adventure with a laid-back attitude and a distinct south-eastern European vibe.
The method of storytelling, acting, and character motivations are distinctively Japanese, potentially alienating some audiences. The visuals are also a mixed bag. But all that hardly matters when katanas start whizzing around. This is an excellent game with rough looks, doing its own thing.
Outcast: A New Beginning is a competent game from a technical standpoint but lags massively in the narrative and pacing departments. It looks beautiful, and the combat is OK, but the overabundance of fetching quests and weird world-building drags the whole thing down.
Watching the pre-release teasers, I was under the impression that Pacific Drive would be a sort of an interactive road movie. Instead, we got a rogue-lite car action with the interaction limited to avoiding colored blobs in the environment and recycling trash for progress.
Kicking the door down and ordering everyone to freeze or hit the dirt; is there a more exciting and fulfilling aspect of crime fighting? There are precious few games of this type, and S.W.A.T. 4 was probably the last great one. But now, after almost two decades, Ready or Not is here to upset the status quo.
I haven’t had this much fun in Metroidvania since Metroid: Dread. For that sentiment alone, the twenty-ish hours I spent inside this insidious Megastructure is completely justified.
Sadly, Flashback 2 is a disaster, or le désastre, as French would say. It’s actually pretty rare these days for a high-profile release to turn up this spectacularly bad. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong, making the game a poster child for faulty developmental and QA practices across the board. It’s so bad that it is somewhat impressive.
The Talos Principle 2 is going to make you think, and not just in the practical, puzzle-solving sense. The game will suck you into a superbly crafted story, full of melancholy, philosophical discourse, and great characters. It will play with your emotions, putting you in a zen-like environment, roasting your mind over a slow fire, only to poke you with revolving bursts of fatalism and cautious, inquisitive optimism. It can hardly be described, you’ll have to experience it to fully appreciate it.
Alan Wake 2 is a narrative and puzzle focused mix of great writing and solid survival horror action that toys with player's mind in a sublime and superior way.
Like almost every Paradox Game under the sun, you’ll do well if you wait for a couple of months’ worth of patches before committing to Star Trek: Infinite. There’s a solid game under the big pile of bugs, waiting to be properly enjoyed. I sincerely hope it will eventually emerge.
If you have been holding out on CP2077, waiting for the promised fixes, now is the perfect time to play it. You don’t necessarily need Phantom Liberty to marvel at its greatness, but if you decide to get it, you’ll up the experience to extraordinary heights. In the superficial, filler DLC era, having something substantial like this is a beautiful anomaly.
In Lies of P, South Korean studio Neowiz Games managed to nail both the formula and the feeling of the From Software’s classic, creating one of the best Soulsbornes in recent history. Not only did they succeed in cloning the core of the Bloodborne experience, but they poured their own magic into the mold and cast something unique.