For all its enthusiasm, openness, and Red Bull product placement, Steep can’t overcome a mountain of small problems.
I’m very glad it exists. If it is simply interactive fiction, it’s a wonderfully inventive take on it. I love its symbology and mystery, its citations of fictitious scholars with their disagreements and lapses, the way you can interpret a culture as deeply pious or vaguely threatening through nothing but squiggles assigned meaning – its exactly the kind of story that makes me think that if Borges was alive today he’d be fascinated by videogames.
Mainlining could have been a good, comedic antidote to Orwell’s overt political warnings. As it turns out, it’s got as many flaws as an outdated Windows operating system.
Overall, I don't know exactly how I feel about For Honor. It sometimes feels like a Ubisoft hired a bunch of scientists in white coats to observe Dark Souls PvP from behind reinforced perspex and experiment on it with Dota DNA in a mad attempt to recreate a tame monster in a safe environment for their own nefarious ends (profit). What they've made is an interesting chimera, something that is both more accessible but sometimes just as unforgiving.
All this and more reveals Wildlands to be a shooter that has been released messy and unfinished, a practice that Ubi is doing with increased proficiency with each passing game, seemingly using their beta tests as demos and marketing opportunities instead of using them to actually test and repair their game to an acceptable level.
It's a game of risk, reward and really bad decisions. It's many times more thoughtful than Duelyst, which is always my yardstick for card games. But at the same time it is much less climactic, less explosive, and less creative with its minions and their abilities.
There was a big part of me that didn't want to stop playing and maybe I'll pick it up again some day, because there is so much to love about discovering the laws of nature behind this huge, ruined ecosystem. But with each random death, each accidental roll off a cliffside, each checkpoint drought, that love turned to ash. There is so much beauty and intrigue and diversity of life in Rain World. It's a pity the game doesn't want you to see any of it.
The Surge is shonky, inferior and more than a little derivative. But if you fancy a shortcut-filled robotic challenge, it's not all bad. Just be ready to get deprogrammed.
Everspace is at its best when one or two bits of your ship are busted and you have to improvise slightly during fights and prioritise finding the nearest mechanic station or a pile of nanobots. When the pressure is on and it embraces those sim-lite incidents, it can overcome its dogfighting simplicity and dainty flight controls. For me, however, I'm not sure that's enough to keep playing.
Passpartout does a decent job of replicating the frustrations and concerns of being a painter, but that does mean it's purposefully difficult to tell what people want. I like that it gives you an excuse to indulge in some childish MS Paint creativity, but I'm finished with the art scene. These scum don't deserve to gaze upon the Stretch Face.
Even if it isn't top of my list of collectible card games to get into (yes, that honour still goes to Duelyst) it has an attention to detail that is admirable and should be noted by others in the room.
I only wish that the mechanics and feeling of Pyreball lived up to that strong storytelling, because it so often feels like an interruption to a great tale.
Suspicious Developments have distilled that chaotic kinaesthesia into something much smaller, smarter and spacier, which is absolutely to be praised.
Shadowhand is built entirely on a foundation of muddy luck. Sometimes the cards come up in such a way that you can combo twenty or more in a row. Sometimes you have to pass your turn over and over again, waiting for a useful 7 or 5 to show itself. That's why I find it unsatisfying.
So much of this world is best experienced via first-hand discovery.
I'd happily recommend FFXII to a particular type of person.
If you play in co-op, you'll probably be able to ignore the flaws long enough to have a jolly evening or two with some friends (Windows 10 friends only, of course) and if you're dead set on rolling around in the blood and gore, I suggest this is how you play it.
It can be confounding at first, not to mention the ugliness of those grey boxes. But it doesn’t take long to realise that this is something special. A management game that feels like you’re in charge of people – beautiful, flawed people – instead of a handful of impersonal bots. And it’s those little people who will keep you going.
When a single character’s dialogue is the most annoying thing about a card game, the creators probably deserve some credit. Lord knows the voice acting is at least as good as it is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and so is the writing. By that I mean the writing is a passable exploration of fantasy tropes and power politics that’ll probably become hugely overrated.
In all, I’m pleased by my scrappy fights, and my tutelage of Hooves the horse man continues.