The moment you begin Headlander and see the VHS-style lines show up along with the formation of the old-school title with a blast of colors and a jaunty tune, you know you’re in for something good.
Despite a mind-boggling choice to switch things up drastically midway, Quadrilateral Cowboy is an innovative puzzler that plays with both the angles of hacking and heist films in a terrific way, making for something that those who enjoy brain-teasers with a bit of spice will enjoy.
Dreambreak may look pretty on the outside, but peeling back its pixelated style and impressive music reveals the dull story, flat characters, lack of substance and clunky gameplay within.
BOID is a simple and easy-to-play game that also finds ways to suck you in for lengthy periods of time.
FRU bills itself as “The last Kinect game you’ll ever need to play!” While it may be easy to make jokes about that statement just based on the first few words alone, what we have here is not only what may very well be the best Kinect game ever, but also one of the year’s best puzzlers and platforming games overall.
While roguelike and roguelike-inspired games such as these feel like a dime a dozen in recent times, Necropolis stands out simply by being the best that it can be, with a striking visual style, great sense of humor and an enjoyable co-op mode working together with immense, randomized, yet terrifically-designed levels and some great combat.
While not exactly one of the best simulation games out there, Poly Bridge still manages to be quite unique and enjoyable, and easily has enough content to satisfy players for quite a while.
While it ends up feeling a bit like the weakest game in the series so far, even a weak Zero Escape game is still an absolute delight, and Zero Time Dilemma is no exception.
You will die in Wasted. You will die a lot, it is a given. But thanks to its easy-to-learn, enjoyable gameplay, great use of roguelike elements and perfectly implemented Thunderdome-esque 1980s atmosphere, you will easily find yourself coming back again and again, ready to cough up more extra lives like the the arcade games of its era.
If you’re the type of person who’s more of a fan of Demetrios’ intentionally crass sense of humor, it may be worth a whirl, especially given its modest fee.
It’s clear that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan was aiming to be Left 4 Dead with Ninja Turtles, which does sound awesome, but it’s too focused with cramming in elements from other games as well, including the classic TMNT arcade brawlers and Arkham Asylum (down to the Detective Vision and stealth takedowns).
What originally comes off as something completely mindless ends up turning out to be an incredibly exhilarating action games that truly tests your skills…and also happens to have a lot of fun moments that are completely mindless. OmniBus is a crude blast of old-school action that conceals some incredibly addictive gameplay and its bus-crashing glory is worth checking out. Heck, at the very least, it understands stylistic suck better than 12 Oz. Mouse.
At the very least, Goliath is a valiant effort in adapting a series of unique mech battles into a more fantasy-themed action RPG.
Despite the complete curveball the plot gradually throws at you as it moves along, Kathy Rain is a great adventure game with a story that easily gets you hooked and a mystery filled with a grade-A level of challenge to tackle.
While it does sound like Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan has a lot of negative aspects to it, it is still a very good game overall in the end.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but The Walking Dead: Michonne should not have been episodic, as things are over still too quick and feel stripped of the more interesting gameplay bits from before to help support it. Suffice it to say, the tale of Michonne deserves a much better ending than this.
If there was a bit more polish to it when it came to challenge and variety in certain areas, LOUD on Planet X could be a potential rhythm game classic.
Stephen Lavelle deserves a pat on the back. Creating a quality puzzle game with a concept as quirky as this is one thing, but going above and beyond to put so much care into crafting such a near-immaculate set of puzzles equally brutal yet forgiving is full-on applause-worthy. To put it simply, Stephen’s Sausage Roll might be some of the meatiest and most delicious food for the mind you’ll taste all year.
Dead Star is quite fun, unique and serves as a great spin on both old and new genres, but one can’t help but feel concerned about the game’s longevity. Hopefully Armature will spice things up with more updates in the near future, but as is, it’s still a fun little diversion that’s worth a whirl. So in the end, it’s not a real supernova in the multiplayer gaming universe, but at least it’s still a pretty light show amongst it all nonetheless.
While Until I Have You has some bright spots when it comes to presentation, story and a few bits of gameplay, the rest contains a cavalcade of cheap deaths and notable spikes and drops in its various areas of challenge that would be enough to turn off more than a few gamers.