Despite its sometimes very obvious limitations, Event[0] feels like the start of a beautiful friendship.
People are going to like it, because it achieves what it sets out to do and because it can yet be mined for greater efficiency of construction and weirder or more specialist designs, but right now I’m not expecting the break-out mega-success of a Factorio or Rimworld. It just doesn’t have the flex. Not yet, anyway, but the slick, compulsive, ever so slightly bland Project Highrise is certainly a strong foundation for the community to take it somewhere weirder and wilder.
Straightforward, simple, but slick and solid. Cossacks is comfort food, but it feels sufficiently of today despite its cheerfully throwback heart. I had a good time, and most of all I realised that I’m more than ready for this once so staid of genres to come back in earnest.
Firetop Mountain itself becomes a little 3D board, rather than the hulking, ominous sprawl of fond imagining.
It’s just numbers getting bigger. It’s the cynical serpent curled aroundthe heart of every social game, every action RPG, every MMO, every gambling machine, but at least it makes no pretence that it’s about anything more than that. There’s this thin veneer of Monopoylisms with a touch of sardonic Fallout nonchalance and lazy references to famous figures, but it’s just set-dressing and it knows it. This is an experiment in how venal we can be.
I cautiously recommend checking Valley out regardless, because, dreary exposition, excessive darkness and a cruel and unusual checkpointing system aside, it does what it does with polish and expertise.
Okhlos feels like an elevator pitch – ‘go smash up a comedy ancient Greece’ – made flesh, without too much worry about expanding upon the concept. I do admire that, there’s a purity and a glee to it, and it’s refreshing to not butt up against a skill ceiling as in something like Isaac, but I guess once you’ve smote one god, you’ve smote ’em all.
Reigns is glorious. The power of choice, distilled to its essence, heavy with consequence, and a game that clearly delights in its cloistered malevolence. May it reign forever. But… maybe on your phone rather than on your PC.
Headlander’s hugely charming, basically, and though it doesn’t run too far with the humour of its concept, it absolutely makes the gimmick work from a play point of view. It’s got more steam in its engine than other recent, similarly high-concept Double Fine endeavours too, working hard to stay vibrant throughout.
Despite my sense that this chapter is not quite the equal of those before it, it is entirely unmissable if you have played those, still as beautiful and unpredictable and as forlornly romantic as ever, and this time it shows me at least two places I wish I could go and live in forever. And though some water may be overtly trodden this time, be in no doubt that things are moving towards a conclusion.
‘Better’ isn’t the correct operative term, I think. ‘Different’ is, and honestly, that’s exactly what I wanted from DLC – a good reason to play through XCOM 2 again. As a total package, it’s substantial, even if not the equal of the Enemy Within expansion for XCOM 1
The Chernobyl VR Project is meaty and ambitious, and definitely sets a precedent for this sort of thing: armchair tourism taken to a whole new level, and especially valuable when it works hard, as this does, to educate as well as stimulate.
Replica is a strong concept played out a bit too broadly for its own good, but it’s just smart – and certainly timely – enough to get away with it.
Current VR is a technology which, for the time being, is positively defined by being able to look around a believable place but not necessarily do a whole lot else. It is very, very good at making our senses believe that the unreal is real, and ABE VR takes merciless advantage of that.
I happily add 35mm to the swollen pantheon of RPS’ highly-recommended games from the first half of 2016. It is janky at times, but it is something special.
I unlocked a pug with a Santa hat! (Which is odd, given this game was released in May, so Christmas branding seems rather premature).
There’s too much stuff on screen and I keep dying without knowing quite why, and then respawning without realising it because my pug is so damn tiny.
For a fleeting second I felt about 12 years old again.
You’ll have a good time with Dead Rising 4. But you won’t feel as though you earned it.
I should not feel bored in a Batman game, but bored is what I felt for most of it.