Chandler Wood's Reviews
Lost Sea harbors (see what I did there?) a good idea and bright visuals with flawed execution. Although roguelikes are inherently designed to be somewhat repetitive, each one often has a hook that helps it to be more than just its basic design. Lost Sea never expands on its primary structure to give players much incentive to return and try to make it further. Add in having to manage the life of the crew — which could have been a good hook, given better risk/reward and AI — and Lost Sea seems more chore than challenge; a tightly locked coffer filled with possibilities. But what good is a treasure chest if the seal remains shut, even if it does look really good?
At the end of the day, LEGO games are all about that compulsion for destruction and collection, very clearly notating completion percentage to let you know that there is still stuff to do. Of course we can't forget to mention the LEGO charm, keeping things lighthearted and silly when the source material may get too dark. LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a solid LEGO experience — certainly in the top tiers as far as LEGO games are concerned — but still just a LEGO experience that isn't looking to change the status quo while bringing the heart and soul of a critically and commercially lauded film to your console, brick by expected brick.
NERO is not fun. NERO might have a powerful story. NERO might look pretty. But NERO is not fun. Nor enjoyable. Or engaging. Or really anything that may have driven me to want to keep playing. The only thing that kept me playing was the review, because dammit I'm a games writer and that's what I do. For its few successes in deep storytelling and pretty visuals, it fails to come together in any meaningful way. Less interactive than a game. Slower to consume than a book. Not as visual as a movie. NERO takes storytelling's greatest mediums and takes away the reasons you would use each particular canvas to tell a story. The result is a slow technical mess that has something deep to say but doesn't know how to say it.
Impressively updated graphical prowess for a unique visual styling isn’t enough to save it from a myriad of cheaply laid gameplay issues. Deadlight’s problem was never its graphics. Its issues are more inherent to the four-year old gameplay design that doesn’t allow the player to feel responsible for getting themselves killed. Handing the player an axe that barely does a thing. Launching them into spike pits they don’t know they need to leap over. And technical issues with platforming that either stick players to walls or drop them into the waiting hungry hordes. Deadlight could have been a good game, and maybe four years ago I would have thought that it was, but players today expect a little bit more intelligent core game design in which death is a teaching moment rather than a cheap trick.
Blood and Wine takes The Witcher 3 and expands, evolves, and turns conventions on their heads for a fantastic adventure that not only is a must-buy as DLC, but makes The Witcher 3 even more of a must-own game for those that don’t already.
If you’ve never vacationed on Banoi, now might be the prime time to do so, because the island looks better than it ever has before. Just be warned, the helpless locals pretty much want you to do everything for them. For those of us that have played Dead Island before, there’s not much in the Definitive Collection to drag us back. Lack of adding previously missing features like split screen and the inability to import last gen character saves make playing Dead Island again feel more like a chore than an enjoyable experience. With so much else out right now, I am hard pressed to actually want to spend my time on Banoi again, prettier lighting effects or not.
It’s not perfect, but SOMI gets major points for trying something new and exploring mechanics that other games don’t. Maybe it’s time to look a little deeper into the mirror that Retsnom offers and reflect on your own reasons for avoiding indie games.
A good series should end on a high note. Naughty Dog could beat the series into perpetuity, but they chose to close this chapter of their story at a high point and allow themselves and players to move on. In some ways it feels like I'm playing Uncharted for the first time again, living that sense of incredulity and adventure as we join Nathan Drake and his charming half-tuck for one final adventure rooted in love and sacrifice. It's a bittersweet feeling, but they've gone all in to make sure that A Thief's End is the Uncharted finale that the fans deserve.
While I still think that Chapter 1 has been The Odd Gentlemen’s strongest effort for its perfect weaving of the narrative with complex puzzles, I do love Once Upon a Climb for it’s great story, deep characters, and connections it gives the player to the decisions being made and the outcomes they lead to that actually matter. Chapter 3 had me smiling the entire way throughout, and sometimes even laughing out loud. As Graham matures and makes more meaningful connections during his time in Daventry, it seems like the tale being told deepens too, and I can’t wait to see what part of Graham’s life we get to be a part of next.
Alienation is another extremely polished game from Housemarque that takes well known game mechanics and combines them in unconventional ways for an experience that is not only satisfying to play on the surface, but has a layer of depth that most other twin-stick shooters cannot claim. While it could do with a deeper tutorial to engage players in the beginning and the story isn't about to win any special awards, it's a game that I repeatedly find myself coming back to, even if it's just a mission or two here and there with random players. It's one of those games that urges you to continue playing beyond the initial offering and it succeeds in giving us yet another genre to loot a bunch of really cool and powerful weapons in.
If you’ve been holding out on the Season Pass waiting for Treyarch to prove themselves, I think we can be pretty certain that they’ll deliver.
I knew that I was looking forward to revisiting Ratchet and Clank's origins, but I didn't know how much I'd really missed Ratchet & Clank until I got the opportunity to play it all over again for the first time, and this brand new experience is every bit as good as I remember it being 14 years ago.
Candlelight is a lot of great and fun ideas that feel more disjointed than cohesive. Rather than teach the player or provide a challenge, it throws things at you as if to say “hey, check this cool thing out,” without utilizing that mechanic as a lesson to overcome future challenges, instead getting redundant by often falling back on very basic platforming in the later levels. A bit more thought out design could have made Candlelight shine its own candle as an indie gem, but as it stands, the enjoyment waxes and wanes as little more than a testament to a bunch of pretty cool ideas that the developer had.
The Division is something special that's never really been done before in games, and while I don't expect perfection from such a bold experiment, I'm impressed with what they have been able to pull off so far. We're just one week post-pandemic. Imagine what's in store for us going forward.
In terms of gameplay though? Far Cry Primal is a shining example of how a game series should advance, with meaningful and broad changes to the status quo while retaining the characteristics of the core game. A better backstory for Takkar, the Wenja, or even a stronger interwoven narrative may have helped, but it's still a lot of fun to ride a saber tooth tiger and launch spears at cannibalistic primitives for no other reason than we can.
Dying Light: The Following is an impressive expansion. One might worry that the addition of an entirely new mechanic like driving would either ruin the game or feel like a gimmick, but Techland sufficiently built an experience that feels like it belongs, with a scope that could have easily been released as full game itself.
If you're still playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 or you're looking for a reason to come back, Awakening may be just what you were waiting for. It's not perfect, but it balances the low points (Rise) with high points (Splash and Gauntlet), and has a damn fine Zombies campaign to boot. Black Ops 3 continues in its quest to bring variety, creativity, and intrigue to its content, and Awakening doesn't fail to impress.
From the moment that little ball of red yarn tumbled down the old woman's steps to the last bit of yarn that I strung from place to place in the old woman's memories, I enjoyed almost every step, swing, and catapult. The emotive little Yarny had me feeling for him as I traversed the dangerous terrain with his ever unraveling figure. Though the gameplay falls victim to ebbs and flows of being too frustrating at times and too easy at others, it was still an overall enjoyable experience. Like the fading memories of the old woman, it may not stick around in your immediate cognizance, but taking this expedition with Yarny over a weekend afternoon will certainly make an imprint on your heart.
It's a brilliant, beautiful, masterfully crafted work, and the more you discover, the more apparent it is.
Amplitude is a labor of love, polished to a beautiful shine and put into fans' hands by a developer that truly cares about the experience they are offering in revisiting this cult classic. Despite its clean exterior and simple, yet fun gameplay, I fear many will be rather quickly turned away by the steep difficulty curve and a track list that is only good, not great.