Alice Bell
Tails Of Iron is a fun 2D Soulslike that will really tickle anyone who loves Redwall. The combat and world are both detailed and good, so it's a shame about all the padding in the middle.
Exploring and taking photos to solve puzzles in Toem is somehow nostalgic and modern all at the same time, and it's sweet, wholesome fun.
There are many cute details in this co-op kiwis-running-a-post-office puzzle game, but ultimately its puzzles become frustrating too often to be properly fun.
This dating sim meets dungeon crawler has wonderful characters and great writing that delivers some really thrilling romances, but it's let down by the dungeoning side feeling a bit undercooked.
This political road trip is rendered an exciting and entertaining time by its cast and the deliberately piecemeal nature of its storytelling, rather than the story itself.
Twelve Minutes' time loop puzzle is layered and weird, but its short time limit doesn't find the sweet spot between tense and frustrating.
Deck Nine's new standalone effort Life Is Strange: True Colors has the most interesting power and likeable cast I can remember in a Life Is Strange game. I just wish it did more with its own story.
It is playful. It's fun. It's climbing inside a giant wedding cake, riding flying letters, taking part in a giant cooking show with eggs that are excited to be boiled kind of fun.
An imaginative, fun action game that has a nice story about family and personal growth at the heart of its epic adventure, and a good sense of humour, where you turn Aphrodite from a gracious tree back into a bitchy hot girl.
For fans of the series it’s really entertaining. It might not set the world on fire, but you can set some virtual bits on fire yourself if you want.
Look, it’s certainly very possible to spend an enjoyable evening playing Little Hope. But you have to calibrate your expectations towards B-movie, janky schlock-fest. If you go in wanting to have a spooky time that actually freaks your nut, I fear you’ll be disappointed.
An accomplished horror adventure from accomplished horror developers, Amnesia: Rebirth is a worthy entry in the Amnesia series that never quite gets as original as you might hope.
Likewise, as you listen to the stories of the locals (all voice-acted very well, to various levels of eccentricity) and gradually uncover the history of Shelmerston, you realise how much everyone who lives there really loves the place. The love is deep in their very bones, and it makes you love it too. For the six to eight hours it took me to reach the end credits, it even fooled me into thinking I liked my own hometown, which is not true. I hate where I’m from. That’s okay though, because I choose to be from Shelmerston now.
I’m just far less interested in “two dudes who are creative musical forces have a falling out and weirdly obsess over each other for years” than I am seeing the semi-incestuous manoeuvrings of guitarists between different bands in one big music scene, as in Family. I feel like the relationship in Rivals is one that I have seen versions of a lot already, and one that gets talked about loads in real life all the time. The perpetual cycle of John and Paul.
I think the rules are still a bit too opaque for my liking. But they are, typically for Inkle, very elegant, and trust them to be the developers to weave them in with stories of knights and chivalry in such a neat way. Inkle are still better at story than strategy, though. I’ll beat Mordred one day. I just suspect it will take me a long while, is the only thing.
A tough but super stylish investigate ’em up that’ll have you dancing all the way to the murder trial. Probably through some blood from a ritual massacre. But that massacre was a legal one, you can ignore it.
It’s less dramatic than some of Dontnod’s other outings (and probably not for those with short attention spans given the pacing), but Tell Me Why remains a good entry in their the library of stories about families and sad magic – and it’s probably the most hopeful one yet.
No Straight Roads feels like a less good version of Sayonara Wild Hearts, and if you want a rhythm action game I can’t really recommend the former over the latter.
Ultimately, everything in Spiritfarer is like that. Measured, thought out, detailed, kind.
Maid Of Sker is more frightening when it’s not trying to scare you.