Sea of Thieves is a daring attempt by Rare but also a lacking one on so many fronts. While the graphics are fantastic and the game has a unique charm, ultimately the world feels empty, devoid of content and features. Sailing with friends can be an exhilarating experience at first, but when there's not much to do the fun dies down pretty quickly.
Hard Reset Redux is not a bad game, but nor is it something you'll feel particularly satisfied putting an afternoon into. Its dreary setting has been better explored in games like Deus Ex and its combat has been better exploited in Doom. If this year hadn't already been so stellar for amazing releasing, Hard Reset would be more welcome, as it stands, there's a lot better to spend your time on.
Griefhelm isn't a bad game, but the parts that make it good only work in isolation, not with each other. That drags the whole experience down, however excited you might be for the battles.
Etherborn looks nice and has some really interesting puzzles but they are presented in a way that's just a little too slow, not to mention a little too frustrating, to be truly enjoyable.
I thought I would enjoy Pathologic 2, but its needlessly mundane and cruel systems take too much away from its otherwise interesting and strange world.
Forgotton Anne tries so hard to look and feel great. The first part is easily accomplished, the second one not so much as the game strives to be an emotional, imaginative adventure, but fails to communicate with the player all the way through.
Manticore is a fun and simple space combat game that feels unfortunately marred by a genre that still doesn't understand its audience.
Wonderfully inventive, InnerSpace is a very interesting game. Although it is regrettably missing something to keep the players coming back, it is a lovely, gentle, and relaxing game.
While The Escapists 2 appears to be a bombastic, fun loving adventure through misfortune and triumph, it turns out to be mostly a long and patient game of planning, and luck.
Black The Fall is an atmospheric 2D puzzle platformer, and although it creates an interesting tone, the game itself can't quite hold up against the titans of the genre.
While I can't flaunt the game for anything bar a broken inventory system, I struggle to find anything outstanding to say about it as well.
Adam Venture is a good attempt at an exploration puzzle game. Although it isn't perfect, there is a lot to like within the game. Whether this can be improved in the future is yet to be seen, but for now there is enough to enjoy, although maybe not for the price tag on release.
Rock of Ages 3 could be incredibly popular with the right audience with its impressive inclusion of map-making on top of its wacky, over the top design. But there are so many caveats to what you need to enjoy the game, its hard to see it reaching widespread appeal.
With great art and an interesting idea at its core, Aegis Defenders still would have needed quite a bit more refinement to really stand out.
Lacking some polish in the audio and with a highly derivative story, it's hard for Skylar and Plux to stand out from the crowd. Its visuals are nice, however, and gameplay is solid and enjoyable enough. Children will love the vivid colors and silly characters, but not enough is done to appeal to the mainstream gaming crowd.
By no means a perfect game, Styx: Shards of Darkness is still an improvement on the first. As the series continues to progress we can hope to see some better storytelling, world building and crisper graphics and sound, but for now at least we have an enjoyable experience with some interesting ideas to experiment with
This is a multiplayer game, not a single player one. Cruising through the skies against a squadron of human pilots is frantic and enjoyable. Anything else is not worth your time.
Dream Cycle is doing a lot. And it does a lot of it well. But the parts that fall flat, bouncing off the strangeness of the game's own design, make it hard to recommend.
With some friends, you can have a lot of fun exploring Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance without needing to roll any dice, but inconsistent combat and frustrating bosses make the experience more of an ordeal than it should be, not to mention unenjoyable by yourself.
While Johanka's story is interesting, albeit with plenty of boring sections scattered throughout, Theresa's 'ordinary life' is so dull it made me want to do my own chores more than play a video game.