Mark Delaney's Reviews
NBA Playgrounds follows in the footsteps of games like NFL Blitz, FIFA Street, and (of course) NBA Jam. It takes a simple premise — over-the-top arcade sports — and nearly perfects it. It misses an easy layup by excluding invitation options online, but hopefully the promised patch arrives to bring this game closer to an all-time great. Everything else, from the aesthetics and the music to the gameplay and the special wrinkle of wallet-free card collecting, is an uncontested slam dunk.
Narcosis is neither a great nor terrible horror title — it's simply fine. The premise is so strong but the full experience only partially achieves that potential. Its place as a quick completion will attract many of this community, but if you need more than narrative from your games, look elsewhere. It delivers a brief but interesting story with a greatly memorable ending, but in several other ways, most notably atmosphere, Narcosis is dead in the water.
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is misguided by the unending trend of games going open-world. The idea may have been born with good intentions, but blatantly copying all of another series' structure is a bad look, undone much further by the fact that it does all of those same things very poorly. It's unclear for whom this game was made as it feels more like a middling title we rarely see anymore, possessing neither the polish of AAA nor the admirable quirks of an indie.
To say Thicker Than Water is the season's worst episode is both true and deeply misleading. It does take a step back from the extreme highs of the first three episodes, but this is still a story well worth seeing through to the end. Hopefully enough of the Garcia clan survive this season because they're worth another of their own. Some gripes with dialogue aside, the thematic elements remain strong, the characters are some of the best the studio has born, and this episode contributes to the still very high expectations for the season finale.
Controversially written and unflinchingly scary, Outlast 2 is a remarkable game that solidifies itself and its franchise as one of the greats in the genre. Although it gets slowed down by infrequent issues with AI and sequences that will feel familiar to series veterans, the end result is an atmospheric, dread-inducing, and contentiously biting narrative horror. Even more, above all of those attributes it needed to be terrifying, and holy hell is it terrifying.
Unlike the nightmare realm out of which Six is desperate to escape, Little Nightmares is a dream of a game that, upon completion, you may wish you could experience anew.
Doubt is understandable given the history of the full motion video game genre, but despite some glaring missteps, Late Shift is a step in the right direction for this presentation style. With a story that changes drastically on the way to many different endings, issues like stuttering after decisions and a hint of less than stellar production value can be somewhat forgiven.
It feels like Andromeda is worth exploring just once. In many important ways it's a small step for BioWare, but with regard to characters especially, it's hard to ignore the giant leap backwards.
A New Frontier seemed like a gamble, but less so after a great premiere. Now this third episode has even managed to overcome Telltale's usual middle episode slump and provide some of the best, most affecting character moments the series has produced across three seasons. It now becomes a bit nerve-racking to see whether they can close out the season so highly, because if they do, this may become Telltale's crowning achievement.
KONA wants to tell an interesting story within the construct of a survival-adventure hybrid game. It succeeds more greatly at doing the latter but even the story provides enough intrigue to merit seeing the brief game through to the end, as ultimately off-the-mark as it becomes. If you're a fan of either genre by which it's inspired then you'll find something to enjoy in the snow-topped Canadian forests of KONA, but pack lightly — it'll be a short and somewhat forgettable stay.
Speeding around colorful tracks launching missiles, dodging oil slicks, and earning coins is something we've seen countless times in the past, but TTR gets most of it right so it still feels like a race worth winning.
Minimal story, frustrating design, and a revival of all the bad things of which survival horror washed its hands years ago — these all crop up in Vaccine and combine to have the game miss its mark. Instead of a love letter to bygone scares, what we get is a tiresome endeavor for anyone but the most diehard fans for old school horror. What's worse, even such fans might be turned away by Vaccine's blatant ripping off of Capcom's renowned franchise.
Zombie Vikings takes an interesting premise and a beautiful art style and squanders them alongside a bulk of other issues.
Getting on the bike and trying again and again can be fun for a while, but eventually you may find it's best to put it back in the garage and find something that doesn't break your spirit as much as your avatar's body.
No one said survival would be easy, but since it's still a game, it should ultimately be more fun than it is.
Sylvio is a lesson in not judging a game by its screenshots. While it looks like a low budget throwaway, the game's best features mostly come in how it sounds. The memorable music and legitimately unsettling EVP recordings go far to prove its legitimacy as a tool for scaring. If you've never played a horror game, don't start here as the game requires a few too many concessions from the player. If you're a genre veteran looking for something atmospheric, retro-inspired, and adding its own unique gameplay mechanics, Sylvio is worth the trip. It's a candlelit ghost story that leaves you not breathless or horrified, but disquieted, which is perhaps the most effective horror of all.
If "Ties That Bind" is any indication of the level of acting, pacing, and writing to be seen this season, fans can rest assured that The Walking Dead will remain high atop their must-play lists.
Judged against its peers, this version of the Dark Knight is only average; DC's best hero has seen far better stories but he's seen far worse, too.
Westerado is a unique case of a retro-inspired game with the depth of something modern. Dialogue, combat, and the story are all free to explore in several ways, from pacifistic runs to trigger-happy bloodbaths with plenty more in between. The game's early era mechanics will be a joy to nostalgically-driven gamers while also making enough concessions to contemporary players that remove most (but not all) frustrations. If you don't mind the pixelized art and a few gripes that come with it, it's well worth it to saddle up for Westerado.
"Guardian of Gotham" is some of Telltale's best writing to date. It masterfully paces several dangling story threads into one tightly delivered penultimate episode while also seeming to build the greater Bat-verse for future seasons. It's exciting and uniquely theirs at this point.