Matthew Pollesel
You’ve got an interesting setting, a ton of material, all kinds of ideas, and a studio that clearly knows what it’s doing. That all of that got combined into something as forgettable as this is pretty disappointing, and it makes it awfully easy to skip past this game without a second thought.
The whole game is something you’re either going to love or hate. Pacific Drive isn’t going to leave many (or any) people saying, “Enh, it was okay.” You might think it’s a brilliant take on the survival genre, or you might think it’s endless amounts of busy work without enough of a payoff, but either way, it’s guaranteed to get a reaction out of you.
Block Buster Billy is definitely worth checking out if you like your puzzle games hard. It’ll challenge you and it’ll probably frustrate you, but you can rest assured that it’ll make you think.
How high is your tolerance for bugs, jank, and glitches? How much do you pine for early days of Sonic’s foray into 3D gaming? Your answer to those two questions will probably determine how much you enjoy Penny’s Big Breakaway.
It’s hard to know who Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4 is for and why it exists. If there are still Ty the Tasmanian fans pining away for the series’ PS2 glory days, they’re not likely to care much for this 2D take on a 3D series. And for everyone else, it’s hard to see why you’d want to play this instead of the many, many other 2D platformers out there that look nicer and have much more interesting gameplay.
Here are the three key things to know about Please, Touch The Artwork 2: 1. It’s gorgeous. 2. It’s trippy. 3. It’s free.
For a niche audience, Skull & Bones may be a GOTY contender. But for everyone else, it’s hard to imagine the appeal. Skull & Bones is a grind-heavy game with not a lot of payoff, unless your idea of payoff is being asked to grind some more.
However frustrating Tomb Raider I-III Remastered may be to modern eyes, there’s no denying that these games perfectly capture the spirit of the originals. Whether any of that is enough to appeal to modern audiences remains to be seen, but if you want a game that caters to your PS1 nostalgia, this is definitely it.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden represents Don’t Nod’s latest attempt to try and make the whole action thing work. This time out, though, they’ve taken the novel approach of trying to play to their strengths, by creating a narrative-heavy action game with a heartfelt story and multiple endings that depend on your choices. Does it work? I can definitively state: kinda, sorta, depending on how you look at it.
Cavern of Dreams is very much a game for a specific kind of person. As noted above, someone who loves ‘90s 3D platformers, doesn’t mind a few quirks here and there, and has a high tolerance for gaudy colours. If that’s you, you’ll want to check this out.
I can’t help but love Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League. It’s not about to make you forget Rocksteady’s other games, but it’s not trying to, either. It’s a game that’s all about the simple joys of soaring through the air, blowing away aliens, and making funny quips afterwards – and there are far worse things for a game to be.
I can’t imagine playing Witch Rise long enough to get bored by any of it. It’s a Ratalaika-published game, which means you’ll unlock all its trophies long, long before you’ve explored every nook and cranny of the dungeon and defeated the eponymous witch. If trophies are all you’re after, that may be enough, but otherwise, it’s hard to feel too enthused about any of this.
Here’s the key thing to know about Hitman: Blood Money — Reprisal: as long as you go in with the right level of expectations, it’s a whole lot of fun.
Even with its bugs and glitches, there’s still a decent game to be found in The Lamplighters League. It doesn’t quite hit the highs it could, however, so if you’re enticed by the promises of XCOM-meets-Indiana Jones, be aware that performance issues mean it’ll never quite be as good as it could be.
Everything about Bzzzt makes it stand out from the crowd. It’s a very fun old-school platformer that manages to stand out even in a very crowded genre, and it’s definitely worth picking up.
It’s a dull, plodding slog that does a grave disservice to its source material, and you’d be wise to search out that source material instead of wasting a dollar or a moment on this game.
Even if I was disappointed by Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, it was only a minor disappointment, all things considered. It may not reach the highs of the previous Turnip Boy game, but it’s still fun in its own right, and it makes me eager to see what shenanigans Turnip Boy gets up to next (and what genres he’ll get up to them in).
Lifeless Moon spends way too much time telling, and not nearly enough time showing. And on one level, I get it: a small indie studio isn’t going to have the budget to show how a civilization on the moon fell apart. But at the same time, when you’re this good at creating an atmosphere, it can’t help but feel a little disappointing when the rest of the game doesn’t quite measure up.
The big drawback to The Lost Crown is that if you’re not already a fan of Metroidvanias, it’s hard to imagine anything here will suddenly make you a believer in the genre. It’s a well-made Metroidvania, to be sure, but there’s nothing here that breaks new ground.
A quick look at the eShop shows more than 40 other solitaire games, many of them a lot cheaper than Super Solitaire. Given all that, it’s hard to see why you should play Super Solitaire over any of them. Mind you, that could probably be flipped to say that there’s no reason why you should play any of those other games over Super Solitaire. So, with that in mind, go for it, I guess?