As already mentioned, live service games live or die depending on how they are supported, so it is difficult to say if investing time in Roller Champions will be worth it in the long run. The game is solid and feels good to play. The plans for the game's first year sound interesting, with each Season introducing new content revolving around a theme and new quality of life features. Hence, the ball is literally on Ubisoft Montreal's court now. Will they be able to complete their three laps of the arena and score five points? We will just have to wait and see.
It took 13 years for Kate Walker to come back, but it might have been better for Syberia fans if she never did. Syberia 3 is a disappointing adventure game that retained nothing of the best features of the previous entries in the series, introducing so many changes that simply don't work as intended or are marred by poor design choices, making it a worthy purchase only for the most die-hard Kate Walker fans.
Despite some interesting mechanics that make the game feel like a true adaptation of a tabletop RPG, The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes is a cRPG that needed a lot more time in the oven. With some technical issues to boot, it is really impossible to recommend the game in its current state to any type of RPG enthusiast, as there are classic and modern games that offer much better experiences.
Alekhine's Gun comes with an interesting story and some decent gameplay mechanics which are ruined by sub-par execution. The lack of features that are standard in modern video games such as auto-save and the ability to skip cutscenes, sluggish performance, convoluted controls and mediocre gunplay are just some of the most glaring issues of the game. More development time might have made Alekhine's Gun a better game, but in its current state and with a full price tag, the game is hardly worthy of anyone's time.
7 Days to Die features a very interesting mix of role playing games and survival games mechanics, with customization possibilities and multiplayer features deepening the experience considerably. Sadly, everything is damaged by the horrible interface and menu system, a sub-par presentation, some serious technical issues and a general lack of focus. The "make as you go" type of experience offered by 7 Days to Die is definitely intriguing, but when you're fighting the menus more than the undead, something must have gone terribly wrong along the way.
Necropolis is an interesting dungeon crawler that sadly fails to live up to its full potential due to a severe lack of content and sense of progression. The game isn't exactly bad, as there are some interesting ideas, but it features so little incentive to play again that most will end up abandoning it after a few runs. Co-op is just not enough to salvage the whole experience. With such glaring issues, Necropolis is definitely not worth its full price tag for the moment being.
Outcast - A New Beginning is a missed opportunity, abandoning the unique elements of its predecessor for a conventional open-world design that doesn't work well. With uninspired open-world exploration, clunky movement, lackluster combat, and mediocre quest design, it's a hard sell for everyone but Cutter Slade's biggest fans who wish to know how the character's story continues, as there are far superior titles on the market that have executed similar concepts much more effectively.
Agony is the best video game representation of Hell ever created, but it's the only thing the game has got going for itself. With its lack of gameplay direction, poorly explained mechanics and bad pacing, playing Agony can be a hellish experience, and not for the reasons the development team intended.
The Dead Island 2 Haus DLC is a very small expansion that doesn't bring anything substantially new to the experience. Its brevity prevents it from overstaying its welcome, but the additionl of a cool crossbow weapon is not enough to get most players to return to Hell-A so soon.
With its colorful fantasy setting, and decent lore, characters, and story, Stray Blade could have been an enjoyable action role-playing game, but having plenty of heart is not enough to make a game one that is universally worthy of playing. The clunkiness of combat, the bad level design, and the general lack of polish make the journey to the Valley of Acrea a frustrating one that only die-hard action role-playing game fans will have the stomach to complete.
With little additional story and gameplay content, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - Wanderer of the Rift is yet another endgame expansion that doesn't introduce enough new features to make most players return to the Strangers' world worthwhile. Only hardcore players who want to explore the maximum potential of the game's mechanics will find some value in an expansion that feels even more disappointing than the one that came before it.
With its setting and story, Steelrising could have been the Bloodborne-inspired Soulslike that many have been waiting for since the release of From Software's masterpiece. Unfortunately, the game developed by Spiders doesn't manage to be anything more than a middling game, with its gameplay issues making it hard to recommend to those who are not die-hard fans of the genre.
Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires attempts to mix features introduced in Dynasty Warriors 9 with strategy elements but fails to do so due to a variety of issues, such as the low difficulty level, limited character creation options, and a generally unpolished experience. A better implementation of open-world mechanics would have done wonders to update the Empires' experience, but Omega Force decided to play it extremely safe, resulting in a game that only die-hard fans of the series will enjoy.
With its unique setting and interesting story mechanics powered by time-traveling, great sense of scale, and nice visuals, The Waylanders had the potential to be a remarkable role-playing game. The uneven pacing of the story, writing with wild quality shifts, the rather run-of-the-mill combat, the clunky interface, and a general lack of polish, however, make the game often frustrating to play, preventing it from reaching the heights it could have achieved.
With its ancient China setting, Immortals Fenyx Rising: Myths of the Eastern Realm could have expanded the main game's experience in a lot of meaningful ways, but Ubisoft Chengdu preferred to play it extremely safe, presenting an expansion that, in reality, expands very little. Lacking the good writing and the hilarious characters of the main campaign, and any major gameplay change, this DLC expansion is a worthwhile purchase only for those who haven't had enough of the puzzle-solving seen in Fenyx's adventure. Everyone else will find this adventure in the Eastern Realm a little stale.
The Surge 2: The Kraken offers a new area to explore, new enemies to fight, new items to find and new side-quests to complete. Sadly, the new content is not particularly meaningful, and the short length makes the DLC a worthy purchase only for those who love the main campaign.
Deliver Us The Moon: Fortuna fully delivers on what it promised, offering a very interesting take on the narrative-driven experience, an interesting sci-fi story, a great atmosphere, enjoyable puzzles and gameplay mechanics, and some interesting story twists. The experience, however, is irremediably ruined by the abrupt cliffhanger ending, which makes the game feel incomplete. While free DLC with the ending is coming, it's hard to recommend the game at full price in its current state.
The Gundam Breaker series finally hit the West, but it couldn't have done it in a worse way. New Gundam Breaker is not a bad game at all, but the many issues, such as low mission variety, performance issue, and mediocre story mode, outweigh its best features, mainly the huge amount of Gunpla models and the vast customization possibilities that come with it.
KING Art's take on the series was supposed to introduce it to a new generation of fans, but as things stand, it would be better for those interested in getting the older Black Mirror games, as the reboot is marred by a variety of issues that prevent from being a memorable experience. There is a decent adventure game beneath the mediocre writing, bland characters, and technical issues, but it would be better to look elsewhere if one is looking for a masterpiece.
The Long Journey Home is a roguelike that tries to do things differently but it still fails to become accessible enough to a wider audience. While there are some interesting mechanics and features, the bad controls for both ship and lander and the lack of precise information will put more than a few players off.