Alex Jackson
LUFTRAUSTERS is a great example of using very old ideas and recycling them in very interesting and fun ways
Cel Damage has a great core concept that would be great to see explored further, but that glorious promise just makes it more of a shame that Finish Line Games for whatever reason couldn't take it to that next step. As it is, Cel Damage is a hard sell to those without a strong core group of people to play locally.
Mario Golf: World Tour isn't set up as well as it could be, and fails to live up to the rest of the series. It is still very well executed where in matters, and it's consistently fun to hit the links of the Mushroom Kingdom.
Final Fantasy 3 is not the ultimate fantasy by any means. There are far better entry points to the series and far more mechanically enjoyable titles for series faithful to return to.
Shovel Knight is a game that you should buy, plain and simple. It takes what could have been a simple nostalgia trip to a new level and shows that shovelry is alive and well.
While it's an acquired taste to be sure, and has a bit of a sting to it when the hardware isn't quite right, OlliOlli brings solid skating to the PC and is worth a look for anybody who enjoys a good scoreboard chase.
Nope. Just nope. Go elsewhere. Sacred 3 offers nothing worth seeing.
The Swapper is simply an unforgettable experience regardless of platform, and though it can sometimes feel a bit alien to control using a joystick, The Swapper is still a journey well worth taking.
There isn't much to the bottom line here. Hohokum is a great art project, but taken as a game it falls seriously flat. For the right price and mindset, possibly enjoyable, I just got very little out of it.
Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate is still very much Warriors. If that's not a thing for you then this isn't going to change your mind. If you were going to try to jump in though, Warriors Orochi 3 is an excellent point to give it a shot.
Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS is a very large game in some ways, and shockingly small in others. While there is an amazing amount of busywork, you might even feel like you've seen most of what the game has to show you within a few hours of play. As a companion, Smash 3DS works. it functions. As it's own entry though, it just feels light and without identity.
Samurai Warriors 4 might have followed up on the last warriors title quickly, but it does enough differently to be worth a look on it's own merits. Not really anything that will get new fans, but enough to keep the attention of existing ones.
Elite Dangerous is not going to be the game for everyone, and in fact most are going to be turned off by all it demands from players. The fact remains though, that the game does exactly what it wants, and does it very well. It isn't here to please everybody, but those who it is for are going to have a good time.
Unmechanical Extended on a fundamental level fails to address the shortcomings of the original game, and even though the extended episode tries it's best to do something interesting, it's against the clock and the mechanics of the game. Extended isn't worth the asking price for what it offers, especially over the original version.
Bladestorm Nightmare is an anachronism. It tries to do a lot of things, but does nothing terribly well. The opportunity porting the game offered was pretty much squandered, as it drags most of the original games shortcomings up with it. It's not a game for the uninitiated and it's probably better left as the cult title it always was.
Helldivers is a fascinating experiment in community involvement mixed with a classic tactical shooter. It doesn't fire on all cylinders, but get a group of people together and Helldivers can be a hell of a time.
Toukiden Kiwami is a solid expansion on Age of Demons, and a reasonable facsimile to Monster Hunter should the 3DS entry not be your bag. But it does need to be treated as the remaster it ultimately is, and really isn't worth it for veterans.
Xenoblade Chronicles earned its cult status on the Wii, and the New 3DS version makes it much more widely available. Aside from a visual downgrade, the handheld port is worth your time.
Magnetic has potential, but fails to reach it due to how hard it tries to be Portal. If it had tried to focus ion its own gameplay and kept it as pure as Portal, they might have had something special. As of now, it exists, and that's all that can really be said about it.
Submerged is...Well, it exists. It wants to stand beside games like Journey, yet missed the mark so much on why Journey worked. It puts you in a world and expects you to be amazed, but never delivers any reason to become attached or really, a world pretty enough to just become absorbed into visually. Float on.