Pixel Privateers knows exactly what it's doing, and though it's about as deep as a microwave lasagne, it's almost impossible not to lose yourself to it for a few evenings.
The single greatest thing about PC gaming is that it's a medium which will explore every niche, and I was glad for a brief nose at this one. It is a bit crashy in its current form through, and that paired with the feeling that it needs a little more meat on its bones makes me more inclined to suggest waiting a month or two.
Funny, strange, sweet, accessible, as intricate as a Gordian knot with it. Loot Rascals is a smart piece of game design executed with delightful style. Even so, it feels as though the mechanics overwhelm all else – I do think it would benefit from offering more structure and goals in order to then earn the daily-play status it clearly desires.
There's no escaping that you're essentially playing arena-based score attack, but quite clearly a shit-ton of money and expertise has been gone into this, and it looks and feels some distance ahead of the VR shooter pack.
Clearly, a lot of money and skill has gone into making Shards Of Darkness, which only makes the fact that you have to battle past this woeful characterisation to get to the strong stealth meat below all the more tragic.
So, is all this worth [the money]? I wouldn't say so. You could blow through it all in three hours, and it's unlikely that you'd play most of it ever again. The only elements of it that I'd say you even need to see are Bedroom and Daughters, but even those are one-shot affairs.
Sadly it's all too brief and only stands up to one playthrough, realistically. I'd definitely be up for a dedicated bundle of a half dozen vignettes like this, though. It utilises and clearly understands exactly what it has in Resi 7's best element – the twisted Baker family – and keeps its hands clean of the excess that characterises Resi 7's final act.
Don’t be fooled by screenshots to this effect. Glittermitten Grove is nothing but misery. Build, wait for meters to refill, endure, repeat, self-loathe.
No, you don't need to have played 1999 weird fantasy roleplaying game Planescape: Torment to enjoy this spiritual sequel. There are references and commonalities, but they're not in any way necessary to understand or appreciate it. What is required is a reasonable degree of patience, and an enjoyment of reading and of big ideas.
Torment is the weird, wordy, wise and wicked roleplaying game we've so desired during these long years of heightened spectacle. Not a total triumph, no, but close enough.
This has an intensity that vanilla Skylines does not have, this race against time element, this coping with cataclysm factor. You don’t have to play Scenarios – you can just have disasters as a randomly-occuring risk in a standard game. But the Scenarios do provide a backbone to something that sometimes seems a bit stuck on the fence between ‘game’ and design tool.
Really, what this is is The Martian compressed into a fraction of its length, with minor interactivity in a few key scenes. It feels like it should be a promotional freebie for the movie, not a $20, 40-minute game that actually costs more than the bloody Blu-Ray does.
This is an excellent Hitman game, and a substantial one. As an all-in-one package it perhaps doesn’t feel as vast as it did when released in chunks, but it still works well. The experiment to make each level bigger, more distinctive and more ornate instead of having a glut of them has worked extremely well.
I like the game at CE’s heart, but interacting with it is simply unpleasant. Were it slick and reliable perhaps I could bear its extreme micro-management and unhelpful UI, but the fact is that it’s currently strewn with technical errors, most of which boil down to, once again, build orders not happening. Meteor storms, cult outbreaks and merman invasions are its highlight, yes, but ultimately they are just colourful interruptions to a deeply frustrating normality.
It is a pretty decent VR title though, with a strong conceit and pleasant scenery. That makes it notable enough. To be honest, what it really needs is support for sticking your arms out at your side and flapping around like Big Bird, but perhaps the later Vive version and/or Oculus Touch support might let us live out our Michael Keaton mid-life crisis fantasies.
Happy 20th birthday, Lara. I hope you find your way home one day.
THUMPER is the videogame you should play today.
Rez Infinite is the greatest VR game to date
If Slayer Shock is to have a long afterlife, it will come not from binging, but from slow, careful forays into its Hellmouth.
You very rarely get to relax in Colorado. Someone’s always thinking about feeling your collar, and unlike some of the other maps, there’s almost nowhere to run away to if you get found out. The bastards are everywhere. It’s tenser and even more difficult than its predecessors as a result. This is much more of a pure stealth map.