Chandler Wood's Reviews
Clid the Snail is a lot of really interesting ideas executed in a way that feels really rough around the edges. It's almost there in many ways, but some quality of life issues and design choices hold back the unique concept. Its brilliant art and character design is masked by some hazy aesthetic choices. Its "methodical" combat often ends up more cumbersome and overwhelming than tactical. An interesting story, world, and mystery, however, helped to keep my interest despite these issues. If you love taking a chance on weird ideas-and that key art of Clid with his gun caught your attention-it's worth experiencing Clid's world, but be prepared for a number of speedbumps along the way.
What you end up with is an experience that shows a ton of promise, but ends up being entirely average. It's hard to call Watch Dogs Legion a bad game outright. It's a serviceable, if traditional, open-world game with a boring story and novelty mechanics that play out better on paper than in execution. The PS5 version makes expected improvements to visuals and load times, but isn't a standout example of a "next-gen" title.
Despite being rather rough around the edges, Tannenberg’s unique nature breaks from the trends of most AAA first-person shooters today.
Edna & Harvey: The Breakout – Anniversary Edition takes the much maligned English version of the much lauded German original and gives it a fresh coat of paint that feels right at home on modern consoles, yet still retains some of the original problems that kept it from joining the point-and-click pantheon of greats. It's got a great new art style and a fantastically intuitive console interface, but never breaks out of a kind of plodding mediocrity that keeps it from moving up from being just okay to something better.
There are many redeemable elements of Re:MIND. Its main campaign fills out Kingdom Hearts III’s ending, and King Mickey is just an epic badass. But unless you’re a glutton for punishment, it’s probably better to just catch up on the story elements via YouTube and await news of the next game in the series.
I really love Penn & Teller VR for what it was willing to do differently with a VR headset, something that no ordinary video game can replicate. The headset becomes a magician’s prop, and you the performer. But its welcome wears thin too quickly, its traps, tricks, and inner workings too easily revealed, and gimmicks too often expected. It’s just not the magic of video games that I was hoping for from two of magic’s greatest.
Melbits World is an interesting and fun party puzzle platformer, but its pacing is just a (mel)bit too slow to encourage repeated or long gameplay sessions.
Crisis on the Planet of the Apes shows VR players what it means to be an ape, not only putting them in the role of the fur covered creatures, but also requiring that they move and act like one too. By the end, I felt sufficiently ape-like. Crisis accomplished its goal of immersing me in the role, even if some of the more brilliant ape interactions were one-off moments rather than regularly used mechanics. Sadly, this brilliant immersion is hampered by dull environments, enemy encounters that become boring, and a fairly weak story that requires the films in order to mean much. Even then, the duration of the hour-long experience can be summed up simply by saying “ape escape.” Crisis on the Planet of the Apes creates some interesting new ideas for virtual reality, but it ends up tripping over its own big monkey feet along the way.
When I was finished with it all and the Platinum trophy popped up, I had no desire to play the game again, but neither did I regret the experience. Pop-Up Pilgrims is an interesting virtual reality diorama that is just a bit longer than it should be. The best thing that Pop-Up Pilgrims does is present a fascinating papercraft pop-up world that more VR developers should explore. Had it offered a more consistent growth on mechanics and rapid change between the variety, it would have stuck with me more than it did. Instead it was a monotonous and repetitive 60 levels that didn't offer anything memorable during the five or so hours that it took to complete. Pop-Up Pilgrims isn't a bad game by any stretch, but it's not all that interesting or engaging either.
Hidden Agenda has all the trappings of a Supermassive game, but its potential is cut short as Crime Thriller: The Party Game. Stiff animations give the impression that Hidden Agenda was rushed. While the PlayLink technology has potential and does some really cool things by turning your phone into a controller, it also adds unnecessary complications to a game that uses the second screen functionality as more of a gimmick than a core gameplay mechanic. Hidden Agenda is a good game, but is held back from being great by trying to fit it into the party game mold.
Editor's Note: If you intend to play Don't Knock Twice without PSVR, take a point or two off of the final score. The flat-screen version is inferior to the virtual reality version.
There are a lot of good pieces in place here, with the gameplay mechanics and the co-op, but they've been packaged in a very scant box that doesn't do them justice. Ancient Amuletor needs to be more than a short PSVR experience that is barely longer than the demo that's already available for free. Perhaps all of the elusive "Coming Soon" content will fix that, but at launch Ancient Amuletor finds its quiver running out of arrows too soon.
PaRappa the Rapper Remastered is a great throwback aurally and visually, but the frustratingly tight timing required and delay of PaRappa’s audio samples make it a chore to play. It’s a shame that the menu wasn’t reworked to highlight the additional arrangements or to take advantage of how control schemes were updated over time, and I’d rather just listen to the songs than hear PaRappa freestyle his own messy groove over the tracks for the sake of a high score. Still, as frustrating as it can be visiting an old friend that never grew up, there’s something endearing about playing PaRappa the Rapper almost exactly as it played 20 years ago, with a fresh, vibrant coat of paint on its audio and visuals.
Smashbox Arena is not the type of game you expect to like. I thought it would be a quick and easy game to write off and call yet another mediocre attempt at utilizing the virtual reality platform. At a glance, it looks like some college programmer's senior project that they hammered out over a couple of semesters. In practice, Smashbox Arena ends up being a lot of fun, with precise tracking and fast paced competitive gameplay that hides a lot of depth and strategy, but it's ultimately held back my a number of technical issues and the lack of a strong online community.
This review will contain spoilers for all previous episodes and the current episode of Batman The Telltale Series. Here are our previous reviews for episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, and episode 4.City of Light isn’t a disappointing ending by itself, but it’s a ham-fisted conclusion to an unfulfilling take on an overplayed hero. Batman in the traditional sense just isn’t interesting anymore. He’s expected. And the unexpected is also expected, to the point that we’re looking for those things that will be different. We’re looking for the younger Cobblepots, the surprise villains, and the Wayne family twists. We’re expecting everything that any new Batman can throw at us, whether it’s the same or a twist. If there is a season two, there need to be some serious refinements to the structure and approach to make it work, and if Telltale doesn’t do something about their failing engine, it won’t matter what type of Batman story they try to tell next. Engine trouble may just end up leaving them stranded.
This review will contain spoilers for all previous episodes and the current episode of Batman The Telltale Series. For our review of Batman The Telltale Series Ep. 1: Realm of Shadows, click here.At the end there’s the promise of a new larger villain at play, who seems suspiciously like Telltale’s version Scarecrow with a slightly modified Batman Begins story, using a neurotoxin to “free” the city of Gotham. I’m just waiting for the inevitable Joker reveal, because let’s be honest, everyone who takes on the Batman mythos wants the chance to do their particular version of the Joker. At this point, while trying to honor Batman and give unexpected beats, Telltale has managed to make Batman actually feel dull. There’s a lot of potential in what they are doing, but Children of Arkham is more poorly rehearsed high school play than engrossing Batman fiction.
The disparity between the repetitive majority and the engaging finale did cause me to like The Final Station after it was said and done, but it’s not enough to overlook the significant flaws along the journey. Ambiguity is supposed to provide a level of intrigue, making players want to look further and explore dark corners, being rewarded for the risks they take to discover more. Instead, The Final Station hands out breadcrumbs without promise of a full loaf until the very end. Repetition and simplicity hold back what could otherwise be a fascinating survival horror indie,and a personal tale of interest about the train conductor. It’s worth taking a ride on this train once if not to see the promise the narrative holds, but don’t expect to want to hop on board with the mechanics again when you reach the final station.
Dead Secret works as a mobile VR game, but its simplistic roots are painfully obvious on the PlayStation. The ability to play the game on a TV without a headset feels like a tacked on addition that wasn't optimized. Using PSVR, Dead Secret certainly has its frightful moments, and the story is intriguing enough to drive a player through to the end, but with all the great PSVR games out now, Dead Secret feels like a dud on the platform. It takes more than an intriguing story to make a great VR experience. While I had a fun rifling through Dead Secret's mysteries and more than once found myself spooked, it's not an experience I have a desire to play again or showcase on my headset.
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 easy to see the flaws in Rubble Without a Cause if it's compared to its predecessor. Chapter 2 simply shines half as bright as A Knight to Remember. By itself, it's still a fun adventure with entertaining puzzles, dialog, and of course, that beautiful visual style that they've created for this King's Quest. As a whole, Chapter 2 is definitely the lesser of the two out thus far, and given the premium price point on the episodes, and the claim that this game will be bigger than most episodic releases (such as Telltale Games' titles), I expected a bit more than the mundane and quick filler episode we got. Given a strong start from Chapter 1, I'm hoping that The Odd Gentlemen can dust themselves off after faltering with Chapter 2 and give us a third chapter to be proud of.