Dustin Bailey's Reviews
Yars Rising keeps the spirit of its inspiration alive through the robust old-school challenges of a hacking game, but as a 2D Metroidvania it all falls a bit flat. Great controls, fun ability progression, and a killer soundtrack can't elevate the game past the limitations of its straightforward level design.
Princess Peach: Showtime fills its short runtime with a tremendous variety of levels and transformations, elevating each with charming details and a surprising amount of spectacle. Its only real limitation is its own lack of ambition, leaving this a memorable adventure, but not one for the ages.
It's maybe the most Mario has ever felt like a psychedelic dream sequence
It's going to take a lot of improvement to get this sim into an acceptable form
As Dusk Falls blends Netflix-style prestige drama with Telltale-style game storytelling to great results
Bugs, repetitive side content, bad storytelling, and the unfulfilled promise of its choice and consequence system leave Dying Light 2 unable to capitalise on the strength of its excellent parkour and combat mechanics.
A rare sequel that improves on the original in every meaningful way. It's packed to the brim with beautiful worlds and surprising interactions, and its colourful cast is equal parts funny, believable, and sympathetic. Double Fine is rarely wide of the mark, but this time it hit the bullseye.
Resident Evil Village pulls the best bits from the series' past and recombines them into something fresh and surprising. It can't maintain that momentum for its entire run, but Village's heights are among the best in Resident Evil's illustrious history.
Richly realised systems and empowering abilities create a tremendously fun sandbox to dig into, but another toothless story ensures these flashes of brilliance never cohere, leaving Legion feeling less than the sum of its parts.
A range of technical issues are holding it back at launch, but a combination of satisfying combat and likable characters has delivered the foundation of an excellent superhero game.
Confidently serves as both a vindication for the magic VR can bring to gaming, and a satisfying new entry in the beloved Half-Life series.Dustin Bailey
Obsidian's RPG fulfills its potential, but only in fits and starts. Sure, its worst moments are only ever as bad as workmanlike RPG-making, but they make the stretches between some instances of genuine greatness a little more disappointing.Dustin Bailey
A year of updates has helped fill out its light content, but the real magic was there from the start. Rare's take on cartoon piracy encourages you to behave as a cartoon pirate should: a little bloodthirsty, a little silly, and almost always drunk.Dustin Bailey
Competent, with enough fun weapons and silly spectacle to make it inoffensive entertainment. While a half-decade of development hell could've ended with worse results, it's tough to muster much excitement for what's here.
Robust tactics and elegant design ensure Artifact's often sublime strategy isn't complex. But a lack of long-term goals and a risky monetisation strategy leaves the game's future feeling uncertain.
Pirate Pop Plus is a simple arcade-style action game with tight controls and a fully realized 8-bit aesthetic.
Project Highrise takes obvious inspiration from a cult classic, but struggles to build compelling mechanics around a proven concept. Constructing a tower still offers its own simple pleasure, but there’s not enough depth here to keep you building a skyline’s worth of high-rises.
No Man’s Sky has very clear problems. Its mechanics are insubstantial, with the crafting and inventory management systems being a particular exercise in tedium. Yet its scale and beauty is unmatched by any other game I’ve ever seen. It does things no other game ever has. It’s tempting to call No Man’s Sky “decent, but not great,” but that undersells both the game’s successes and its failures. No Man’s Sky is incredible, awe-inspiring, and profoundly disappointing.
Attack on Titan is a good game, but not a great one. It does a tremendous job of adapting the anime's excellent action scenes to an exciting set of game mechanics, but struggles to extend that fun core into full-length game. Any given fifteen seconds of Attack on Titan is excellent, but those fifteen seconds are repeated again and again until they're no longer compelling.
Episode 4 is another terrific addition to Agent 47’s latest. After a less spectacular stay in Marrakesh and a fairly limited detour in the Summer Bonus Episode, Bangkok provides another terrific level for further murderous possibilities, and one I can’t wait to revisit as more targets make their unfortunate lodgings at the resort.