Unlike Metal Gear games of yesteryear, the industry is not going to learn anything new from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Nor are gamers, for that matter. Revengeance would rather be an anime than a game in some ways. But the solid swordplay mechanics and the sheer comic craziness is enough to sustain it through the relatively short SP game. But will we still be talking about Metal Gear Rising in three months?
Maniacal mansioners, Leisure suit lounge lizards and grog-swilling pirates will have a fine time. Teenagers will probably be hopelessly confused. But as a stand-alone adventure, with all the nostalgia stripped away, it's still pretty good.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is a timeless classic that is always worth being reminded about. Some things were done well to begin with and the Complete Edition brings us back to the thrilling excitement of management sims.
Struggling has imaginative indie talent sloshing throughout. Plus, you can tell it's got a big publisher behind it, believing in its charm and uniqueness.
Despite all of this griping, and all of these complaints, Tropico 6 is still sort of fun. Partly it's just watching the numbers going up. When the freighter arrives in port and your first shipment of electronics goes to market, netting you enough money to build a new stadium, it's like a little pat on the head that can be weirdly addictive. There are certainly some bugs that probably shouldn't exist on the fourth (fifth? sixth?) iteration of essentially the same game, but the special sauce that has allowed them to actually get away with making six Tropico games is still there.
When I heard that Paradox and Harebrained were doing Battletech, I expected great things. What I got was... a good thing. Perhaps not actually GREAT in the traditional sense, but fun enough despite its load times and tactical simplicity and clunky graphics and animation. When you punch a mech hard enough that its laser-cannon-equipped arm flies off, or hammer a rain of missiles from the sky into a giant robot and cause its core to explode in a fireball, it's satisfying and lovely. A little more slickness and tactical depth might not have hurt. But overall, I found my time in the cockpit of a giant doom robot to be quite a giggle.
I know it's redundant for me to say - and I'm directly quoting Jon's Far Cry 4 review here - "That growing Ubisoft problem of over-familiarity rears its ugly head once again". If you've had long enough since FC4 or Primal to hunger for more, or you just really hate religious cults, there are many hours of mindless, gun-nut paradise to enjoy here. But it has to be said that if you've played one, you've kinda played them all.
I do hope that Paradox create more of these DLCs with the focus on minor nations, with interesting new National Focus trees. I like the addition of the autonomy mechanic and the new sprites and leaders. But that's only part of what HOI4 needs. If the next DLC brings more resilient AI, better balanced anti-air and a focus on fixing a few of my peeves with the warscore system, I'll be getting it for that rather than for any deep dives into the soul of a minor nation
At the end of the day, the infinite replayability of procedurally-generated maps and adventures is limited by the encounters available, and you'll have seen them all in a couple of playthroughs. Still, in that time it's a pretty good laugh, and The Curious Expedition bestows a real sense of adventure and exploration.
DLC is a funny thing, really. It's lambasted as a cynical money-grab in many cases, but I feel confident in saying that you'll get your money's worth out of Nuka World. For me, it was the prod I needed to get back into the world of Fallout 4, and wonder why I'd ever really left.
Ultimately, it comes down to your own relationship with Pillars. I know, I know. Lazy journalism. But if you've taken a lot of time off and don't feel like you can re-engage with the world in a short time, you'll maybe miss some of the fun. When you roll back into Stalwart and the locals are coming up to you and talking about things you can only vaguely remember, something is lost. If I remove my own personal feelings on the matter, though, it's exactly what you'd hope for: a roughly ten-hour excursion back into a fantasy world you know and love.
Like a good thriller, the whole time I was playing Firewatch I was completely engaged and couldn't wait to see where the story went next. The tale raises interesting questions about solitude, privacy and paranoia. However, a weak ending and some occasionally strange pacing ultimately detracts from Firewatch's spark of greatness.
It's sadistic, mean-spirited and unfair. And it makes no pretense at being anything other than that.
There's so much to love in KLD. It's so close to being wonderful.
The tale is the right mixture of occasionally-interactive cutscenes and third-person adventuring to enhance the feeling that you're starring in a big budget space movie that, despite the reams of dialogue, doesn't require you to think too hard in order to keep up.
There I go again, swinging back the other way! The problem is this. I am a little upset at endless Ubisoft FIFA-esque annual updates that, also like FIFA, are very slight variations on a theme. But these games will never be wholly beige and uninteresting, because they're built on a tried and tested way of making you have fun. Sailing the seven seas with a crew of salty sea dogs, taking on a pair of angry French frigates is just fun. Sneaking through the bushes at a governors' soiree, then sneakily shooting one of his guards with a berserk dart and watching him slaughter all of his erstwhile comrades - that's always good for a giggle. You can feel the swagger when you first buy the captain's uniform and cut a dashing figure through the streets of the colonies. The weaving of historical fact and off-the-wall videogame fiction is engrossing and superbly crafted. So what that it's basically a game you've already played? That doesn't stop it being fun.
So OK. I know I'm supposed to be frothing at the mouth. I know that something I was really looking forward to was passed off to me in an unfinished, slapdash state, and if there'd been less in the way of public outcry Warner would have happily taken the money and run. But after all the grief, and all the misery, there's a really special game hidden here. A tightly-scripted, well-paced superhero simulator that captures the attention to detail that Gotham City deserves with care and respect. If you're still willing to give it another chance, I doubt you'll really be disappointed.
I sort of liked it, though, despite its idiosyncrasies. Maps were pretty, pickups are used as a source of in-game lore in a way that sort of helps draw you in, and the between-mission powerup system is, while perhaps a little one-dimensional, still capable of providing a few interesting options. I don't think we're going to be talking, or even thinking about Ancient Space for very long, but combat is occasionally tense and engrossing, and I enjoyed my time with it well enough.
But there is plenty of it, and it is delivered to a high standard and it is fun to play. And this should really be the yardstick, right? If you think it should be changing and improving in new ways then you know what to do, but for now you will get more of that CoD formula that the world craves so much. Activision have a billion dollars on day one that says they know what they are doing.
There's not a lot to separate Magicka 2 from its hallowed predecessor. But give it time. Paradox aren't ones to sit idly by, particularly when it's as popular a series as Magicka. And besides, as throwaway party-style fun with a deceptively complex core, it's a tried and tested formula. Like death-death-shield.