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Kinetic Games' co-op horror mysteries are as fumbly as they are intricate.
While A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead makes for a decent adaptation of the breakout horror franchise, it ends up falling short due to a slow, uninspired narrative and frustrating sneaking sections. That said, it's still an engaging, tense romp through the world of A Quiet Place and fans of the movie will get their fill here.
Not every party has to go all night long. The Jackbox Survey Scramble is less of a party pack and more like a lunchtime activity. There's room to play and you'll still have time to finish your sandwich.
As one of games media’s self-described SaGa Sickos, I had one question on my mind coming into Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven. Could a SaGa be rebuilt, explicitly for approachability, and still feel like SaGa? Or would sanding it down and making it friendlier turn it into a less daring and bold RPG that’s harder to distinguish from Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest? While some parts did have me feeling a little curmudgeonly, at the end of the day the answer is yes. Romancing SaGa 2’s remake is a fulfilling journey, giving fans of the original plenty to sink their teeth into, while simultaneously offering something that’s a lot more palatable for curious parties to finally set their fears aside and try something new. If it clicks, though, I implore you to dive into the deep end afterwards. Don't sleep on SaGa!
Zero Sievert might use a lot of familiar genre descriptors, such as roguelike and extraction shooter, and it might not do a whole lot different from other, similar games that came before. However, everything it does, it does just right. It rewards you enough to make the steep challenge worth putting up with. It pushes you to explore and experiment by making both goals feel achievable with the right plan and a bit of luck, and eventually, it gives you the tools to make some fantastically detailed weapon builds and take on even bigger challenges with bigger rewards on offer. It's all recognizable, sure, but when Zero Sievert is this fun, innovation doesn't really matter.
While it’s relatively short, Shadow Generations feels like someone took Sonic Frontiers and retroactively applied its secret sauce to an older 3D Sonic platformer, elevating it to heights previously unseen. Sonic Generations is a respectable remaster of a decent game, but pales in comparison.
Playing through Unknown 9: Awakening left me with a cocktail of emotions when I finally rolled credits after 13 hours. I usually pride myself in my ability to see eye to eye with a game’s vision and try to find even footing even if I didn’t have a good time with it, but this is different. The experience of playing Reflector Entertainment's debut title is akin to watching a bunch of trailers for those Phase 1 Marvel movies alongside the opening act of the first Avengers flick. It felt like proof of concept for a multimedia franchise that doesn’t want to give away too much but hasn’t figured yet out what it’s even about. All of this is skinned onto the early 2010s cinematic video game experience which aside from a few fun, if janky combat encounters doesn’t know how to set itself apart. It's heartbreaking because there is a much better experience in between the in-between that didn’t work.
UFO 50 is like stumbling across a time capsule and discovering a wealth of lost knowledge inside. And yet, it’s entirely a singular work of fiction. That by itself is deeply fascinating and makes this thing worth playing. Even if you pass over most of the games and only find a few that stick with you from a fun perspective, the depth on a conceptual level is absurd and gratifying to simply think about. We’re living at a time in which older games are vanishing from both physical reality and our sort of collective cultural well at an increasing rate, when remakes are seen as replacements for original work and curiosity to seek out history is dwindling unless there’s a purchasable remaster. UFO 50 is fun to play and take at face value, but it also highlights how age really isn’t a detriment to having a great time and engaging with games.
I went into The Axis Unseen hoping it would be my jam, and it was. It even made me okay with not having a map (well, after a while), and as someone who has a terrible sense of direction on their best day, that’s no mean feat. I just wanted to explore its world, fight new monsters, and see what I could find. Mostly, though, I think about the stories I got to tell while playing it, like that bit with the Elder Horned Beast I told you about at the beginning here. A little while after I got the fire arrows, I realized I could probably kill a Tree Golem with them, and when I finally ran into one, I finally took it down. It was incredible. And there are so many stories like that in The Axis Unseen. I hope the technical issues get fixed, but even with them, I think Just Purkey Games has made something special. Just... be careful if you venture into this realm between realms? You’re off the edge of the map. Here be dragons. But if you play it right, the scariest thing in this world might just be you.
I was always going to pick up Amber Isle, so I was very happy to review it. Even though it has a few bugs related to the camera and UI, as well as some progression issues to be worked out, I know I'll be spending a lot more time in my shop crafting items to sell to my dinosaur customers. There’s a lot to like about Amber Isle and the team at Ambertail has tried its best to create a wholesome experience. All of these adorable dinos will be my friend before I’m through here, even the grumpy mayor.
Quote not yet avaMetaphor: ReFantazio is, in the simplest of terms, a Persona game in a fantasy setting. While it would have been exciting to see a few more risks taken to separate itself from that beloved franchise, I can’t deny how thoroughly enjoyable this game is.
From chilling environments and grotesque creatures to improved characters, puzzles, and combat, Bloober Team hits the bullseye with this impressive remake.
I Am Your Beast is a straightforward action game that wastes absolutely no time in giving players what they want. The engaging combat mechanics and revenge-driven narrative craft a superb power fantasy that left a strong impression on me.
There's a lot about The Jackbox Naughty Pack that feels less like a full-blown annual release and more like an experiment. There are positives to be found here, especially when it comes to the presentation and committing to the adult theme. The art for all three games is inspired and moments like the Faker dropping trou got some good laughs. The number of games and the way the games are structured feel like Jackbox Games didn't have a lot of confidence in what it was putting forward. That's not to say this isn't fun because Fakin' It All Night Long was a good time, and Dirty Drawful had its moments. With that said, the rest of the package feels, to put a bow on the M-rated theme... flaccid.
At a glance, it’s clear that Silent Hill and Resident Evil were major influences on indie horror game Hollowbody. While its retro PS2-style visuals are what initially drew me toward the game, inside of that is a competent survival horror experience that, while not doing too many things different from its predecessors, establishes a world and setting that’s worth exploring. If you’re looking for a game to scratch the itch of those classic survival horror experiences, Hollowbody is definitely worth your time.
Street Rumble isn’t terrible, but it’s not good either. Sure, it looks good, but the music is boring, the gameplay is bog standard, it has serious design flaws, and in a lot of cases, it just isn’t interesting. Yeah, there’s an arcade mode, boss rush, and so on, but you need to beat the story mode to unlock them, and if I hadn’t been playing this for review, I would have stopped around thirty minutes in. Beat ‘em up fans deserve better. Licensed games deserve better. And The Karate Kid deserves better than to be resurrected as a coat of paint used to gussy up a mediocre beat ‘em up.
My run through the game during this review period lasted a bit over 30 hours, but the game will take longer for the completionists out there. Each player will tell a different story with how they play, solve puzzles, the order in which they clear dungeons, and so much more that I can't talk about at risk of spoiling the story. Needless to say, long-time Zelda players will be smiling from ear to ear when they roll credits. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is full of wonderful surprises, engaging gameplay, and tons of stuff to do in the biggest top-down iteration of Hyrule yet.
EA Sports FC 25 is going to be much like the game you remember from last year. While FC IQ and roles do a good job of making tactics feel varied and exciting, there are many adjustments and improvements that need to be made to AI before things feel balanced. When slide comes to tackle, not too much has changed this year.
Despite a few issues, I still think Ara: History Untold is some of the most fun I’ve had with a 4X historical nations game that wasn’t Civilization. Oxide Studios clearly knew the assignment and they aced on a number of fronts. It’s a little disappointing that for their experience, they weren’t able to avoid common issues like mid-to-late grind, but if you want a game that will offer plenty of variety in playstyles and an interesting and engaging crafting mechanic, Ara: History Untold is quite an extensive option for any fan of 4X strategy.
If you like Mickey Mouse and want to play a fun video game about him, you can do a lot worse than Epic Mickey: Rebrushed! You can also do a lot better, but that would require booting up some old emulators or expensive retro hardware, which is a different kind of thing from having something new(ish) on today’s platforms.