Jordan Hurst
- Portal 2
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- The Stanley Parable
The Town of Light is depressing, and not just for the intended reasons. It's painful to see a project with such noble intentions squandered by such a profound misunderstanding of how to effectively utilise them. It is very possible to create an artistic work that deliberately avoids being fun while still keeping its audience engaged. This game gets as far as the first step and then just gives up…
The first part of The White March wasn't exactly a bastion of innovation, so fans who were satisfied with it will certainly enjoy this conclusion, as it is undoubtedly the better of the two halves, regardless of its steps toward stagnation. It's telling that, despite having already put around 100 hours into the first two Pillars of Eternity releases, this one was still thoroughly enthralling enough to sink in another 10-15.
It would be easy to call Dear RED - Extended another case of "interesting concept, terrible execution," but the concept isn't actually as interesting as it thinks it is. With its half-baked themes and inoffensive presentation, it's really just a run-of-the-mill visual novel that happens to be condensed into the space of a lunch break. The fact that the plot is built around such an absurdly illogical surprise is just the biggest nail in a coffin already riddled with them.
The number of abilities successfully translated from "scripted sequences only" to organic gameplay is usually a solid metric of an action game's quality, and by that criteria, SUPERHOT excels. Its intense gameplay and layered narrative will delight fans of both the aggressive and the analytical simultaneously. While a lot of its innovation is clearly untested, its memetic presence is sure to be a talking point among indie fans for a long time to come.
Calling INSIDE merely a "worthy successor" would be doing it a disservice. It's not just great relative to its sibling; it's great, period. Its cinematic, artistic, and structural techniques have set a new standard for 2D platformers to be measured against. It's possible that in the future, someone will piece together its occasionally disparate story elements into a more meaningful whole, which would likely make it one of the best games of all time. For now, it is "only" one of the best games of the year, an arresting journey, and a solid puzzler.
The developers technically made a smart design decision by limiting the player's available timeframe to eight in-game days (or a couple of real-world hours), because it facilitates unlocking all the endings through multiple playthroughs. However, those eight days are so incredibly dreary and underwhelming that most players will be immediately discouraged from doing so. Considering that only a new form of disappointment awaits at the end of each path, however, that's probably for the best. The commitment to a unique, indelible atmosphere in Breached is admirable, but it absolutely cannot carry the entire experience, especially not when the rest of that experience is so dry and under-realised.
The irony of this re-release's subtitle is staggering. It's easy to become jaded with the experimental indie scene after seeing so many promising concepts fall flat, but Life Goes On: Done to Death accomplishes the difficult task of being both wonderfully original and fully realised. There's nothing life-changing here, but the healthy mix of personality, accessibility, and challenge makes it pretty much solid from start to finish.
The kitchen sink approach to input is gone in Metrico+, but the clever premise is still undermined by a timid, half-hearted execution.
While pretty light on new features (particularly ones that could have contributed to its cooperative nature), Killing Floor 2 is still an unrelenting deluge of mindless, entertaining violence.
The word "illogical" has always been the bane of adventure games, but Memoranda takes it to new extremes by extending it to its setting and narrative in addition to its gameplay.
For Honor's tactical, forceful swordplay is extremely well-executed, especially for a first attempt. It's just a shame it's attached to so many distractions, including a bewildering story mode.
Some gameplay improvements and a slight shift in style have turned Outlast 2 into one of the most terrifying games ever made.
Tacoma's top-notch story and presentation are arranged into an inappropriate structure that will dull the experience, even for fans of exploration games.
Some interesting story developments can't save the first episode of Batman: The Enemy Within from being a tired, simplistic reuse of Telltale's usual techniques.
Graceful Explosion Machine certainly lives up to its name, but narrow-minded design and a complete lack of multiplayer deflate the experience.
RUINER ruins its own explosive presentation and promising combat with poorly thought-out difficulty and incomplete narrative and gameplay concepts.
Telltale's minimalist gameplay is exaggerated further in Batman: The Enemy Within - Episode 2: The Pact, to its benefit, but the plot seems to have been fumbled in the process.
Divinity: Original Sin II refines, expands, or reimagines nearly all of its features, creating a complex, rewarding adventure with powerful multiplayer capabilities.
Dodgy controls nearly ruin this lovably hyperactive ball of imagination.
Overgrowth's opaque combat, off-putting presentation, and unremarkable ideas would have made it a mediocre game ten years ago. Today, they make it a bad one.