Levi van Tine's Reviews
'Minecraft: Story Mode - Assembly Required' came so quickly after the first that I can't help but wonder if it was rushed. Parts of it seem that way - the duration, the weaker script, the lack of entertaining interactions. It's almost as though the episodes were created by different people. It's still early in the season though, and Telltale has some time to pull it together.
They don't make them like they used to, and in the case of 'Toy Soldiers: War Chest', the result is a bland, paid freemium game that falls short of the series' own benchmarks. It is an action/strategy title that doesn't have much of either and can be safely passed over by all but the most forgiving tower defense fans.
Every version of 'Duels' over the years has been fun, but has been missing something - a deck builder, an ergonomic interface, etc. This year's iteration, 'Magic Duels: Origins,' is missing several of them and is a skeleton of 'Magic' draped in the fool's gold of the free-to-play model. Perhaps Stainless can use it to build something really cool in a few years' time, with lots of modes and cards and avenues of play. As it is, it's hardly worth playing even with its asking price of free.
I'll admit I was looking forward to 'Super Dungeon Bros' before playing. I love the genre, and a caricatured metal mash-up could have been interesting, but the game disappoints on all fronts. I like how much emphasis React put on co-op but it needed more under the hood - more choices for character building, more control, more abilities, just more.
'Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India' takes a step back from the modest success of 'China'. The narrative adds little to the overall 'Assassin's Creed' storyline, most of the characters are thin, and the gameplay is inexplicably disheartening. Perhaps Ubisoft can eke out a victory with the Russian installment next month, but this entry isn't worth the price of admission.
Try as I might, even with my fervent obsession/love of the survival genre, 'Goliath' isn't doing anything for me. I very much want it to, because the idea of making big primitive mechs while doing typical crafty stuff actually sounds pretty good on paper. 'Goliath' comes up short on almost all fronts, unfortunately.
'Warhammer 40K' is a great franchise on paper but has struggled in video gaming, and 'Eternal Crusade' is on the lower end of the spectrum. It has the trappings of a freemium pvp game but asks for $50 just to get in the door. From the shoddy controls to the inscrutable mysteries of equipment, this is one shooter we cannot recommend, even for the most dire of 'Warhammer' fans.
I can see why some people like 'Hyper Light Drifter'. Its combination of nostalgia, pretty pixels, and cruel gameplay are an intoxicating drug to some. I'm not one of those people, unfortunately. As I played I felt like the annoying moviegoing companion, always asking for an explanation of events onscreen from fellow viewers also watching for the first time, equally mystified.
'No Time to Explain' has promising gameplay, and perhaps tinyBuild will be able to work it into something more manageable with future releases. As a precision platformer it struggles greatly on the Xbox One. It's not a bad game, and that just about sums it up.
It's fun enough to avoid being labeled a cheap cash-in or filler content for a season pass, but only just. 'Mooil Rig' has a great level design and setup that could have been used for a lot more. If developers want us to keep opening our wallets for games after they've released, they're going to have to pack in the content and make DLC that offers something genuinely novel or substantial, not just add some polishing before slapping a price tag on it.
'The Crew' is a strained lovechild of 'The Fast & the Furious', a pay-to-win MMO, and the "always on and never alone" character of social media. Under the grimey physics, abusive AI, and lame story, there is almost a decent casual racer here. The distinction between city environments makes it somewhat fun to drive around the country, even if the tedious missioning and lack of a real reason to play in co-op undermine its charm. If you are a fan of racers, there are far better places to spend your money.
The dearth of narrative momentum or any characterization whatsoever is the most severe flaw of 'The Bright Lord'. I didn't mind returning to Mordor for a few hours, but the constant stream of timed missions and lack of real content or story means that I'll be forgetting what happened pretty quickly. This is season pass content so if you liked the original enough to commit to the pass, you might as well get your money's worth. If not, there's no need to pick it up.
'Out of Time' is a step back for the burgeoning 'Life Is Strange'. I can't see the forest through the trees, so to speak, and this episode had some difficulty in keeping me interested. The first hour or so especially almost lost me. There are enough plot threads to warrant a mild interest for the next episode, but I hope we haven't already seen the best of what Dontnod has to offer.
I don't know if Telltale has lost their magic or if their adherence to this formula has just worn thin on me, but it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to get excited at the prospect of playing another episode. The halcyon days of season one are long gone.
'Dungeon Souls' isn't boring, but it's tough to justify spending time with it over many of the recent dungeon crawler greats. It is a typical roguelike - fun to play for a while, and easily forgotten afterwards.
I don't know if Telltale has lost their magic or if their adherence to this formula has just worn thin on me, but it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to get excited at the prospect of playing another episode. The halcyon days of season one are long gone.
'New Order' doesn't completely torpedo 'Batman' but it's by far the weakest we've seen yet. Sometimes I feel like I'm less Bruce Wayne and more of a boring CEO with a soap opera love life. There are still two episodes remaining and I hope the best is yet to come.
After last episode's streamer spectacle, I was hoping 'Minecraft: Story Mode' could shake off the cobwebs and head for the finish line with grace and aplomb. Instead, we have a tiny little episode with almost zero interactivity and a predictable plot. It's better than 'A Portal to Mystery', but that's a rather dubious honor.
'Story Mode' has been Telltale’s most consistently unpredictable series in recent memory in terms of its quality. The stronger episodes, full of great jokes, interesting locales, and the occasional heartwarming moment, have been undermined by duds like 'Assembly Required' and now this streamer tribute. It’s best to wash our hands of it and hope for greater adventures the next time the New Order of the Stone meets.
'The Technomancer' is not without its merits, but can’t quite find a place for itself in the RPG/action field. It is clear what Spiders was trying to do and I don’t fault them for it - their creation has the potential to be something special. In this current form that’s all it is though, just potential.