John Cal McCormick's Reviews
Even if you haven't seen the Psycho-Pass television series before, Mandatory Happiness does a good enough job of making it clear what's going on to be enjoyable. It tells an engaging and thought-provoking story that deals with some heavyweight and uncomfortable subjects, and one that poses plenty of ethical dilemmas along the way. If you can get past the borderline non-existent gameplay then the narrative will probably keep you entertained for a dozen hours or so, although it may leave you wondering if this story would have been better told over a few episodes of the anime instead.
When Aven Colony is at its best, it's making a strong case for the viability of the real-time strategy genre on console via an addictive mix of easy-to-grasp city building mechanics, a surprisingly intriguing sci-fi story, and a tight campaign that offers variety and never outstays its welcome. Unfortunately, it has a number of annoying technical issues which -- while they might not affect every player -- are persistent enough to undermine the experience depending on your tolerance for slow down and hard crashes. If you can weather the storm of technical shortcomings Aven Colony throws at you, you'll find an impressive, accessible strategy game that feels right at home on PS4.
Guardians of the Galaxy has been a bumpy ride, with the occasionally poignant character moments and amusing dialogue exchanges drowned out by perfunctory action sequences, tepid puzzling, and the unshakeable feeling that the whole endeavour is just a pale imitation of the Guardians movies. The finale's heightened pace plays to the series' strengths, removing much of what made previous episodes so frequently frustrating, and so perhaps if there is a second season of Telltale's Guardians -- and, like any Marvel movie, you should probably stick around until after the credits for hints as to what might happen next -- we can only hope that it follows the blueprint of Don't Stop Believin'. It's not perfect, but if you're a fan of Telltale's formula or the eponymous Marvel characters, the improved latter half of the series makes Guardians of the Galaxy just about worth playing.
Pillars of Eternity II is a 9/10 RPG tragically trapped inside a 7/10 game. The quality of the writing and the world-building is second to none, and the tried and tested combat mechanics are meticulously tuned, but the outrageous loading times and other technical issues are too upsetting to ignore. It's like sitting in a fine Italian restaurant, sipping a glass of wine and nibbling on breadsticks, enjoying your date, and then the waiter comes over and drops a dead dog on the table. Wrong table, mate. I ordered the carbonara. Now get that dead dog out of my sight.
It's a delightful, jolly, collectathon platformer, and if it keeps your kids off Fortnite for a day or two then you can't say fairer than that.
The mostly laid-back soundtrack and lack of NPCs lends Golf Club Wasteland a chill, lonely atmosphere, which helps to offset some of the more frustrating holes, and the short three or four hour play-time means it never has a chance to outstay its welcome. It's official: Golf Club Wasteland is the best post-apocalyptic golf game on PS4.
Gameplay-wise, not much has changed since Little Hope. You'll spend much of your time walking about, inspecting objects, talking to people, making decisions, and taking part in quick-time events. The formula works, and the six or seven hour running time means that the rudimentary controls don't outstay their welcome.
Swansong's biggest problem is that at times it's perhaps not as clear as it could be about what you're actually meant to be doing or how to bypass certain problems, and you'll find that it's trial and error that gets you through. There's also a couple of technical issues, including one in which we spent ages wandering around trying to solve a puzzle only to reset the game and discover that the solution to the problem hadn't loaded the first time around. Not cool.
So we recommend Super Perils of Baking, it's a solid seven out of ten, and we promise, scouts honour, no word of a lie, we'll never do a review like this again.
We’re giving Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel the benefit of the doubt. It’s flawed for sure. But the ten or twelve-hour playing time is mostly a good time thanks to the effectiveness of the titular guest house as a setting and the oppressive atmosphere it manages to conjure during your stay there.
The only issue we had with Yurukill was that it never felt like it went far enough. It's a compelling tale and it moves at a brisk pace, but it lacks the malicious edge of a Danganronpa or the brain-breaking narrative of a Zero Escape. By the time it's all said and done, we'd enjoyed our time with it, but we were a mite disappointed that it didn't push us harder.
Phantasy Reverie Series is a relatively no-frills remaster collection. There's a couple of quality of life improvements and the games have a fresh lick of high definition paint, but if you didn't like Klonoa back in the day then you're not going to like it now. If you didn't play Klonoa at the time then you won't have the prerequisite nostalgia goggles necessary to gaze upon these games and see them for anything more than what they are - a couple of pretty good platformers and little else, and that's fine.
The lack of genuine stakes means that Two Point Campus never becomes truly gripping, but the easy, breezy vibe makes for an enjoyable, leisurely build-'em-up. It's the perfect management sim for newcomers or children or even fans of the genre who just want a palette cleanser between more challenging titles. It's the sort of game you play on a Sunday afternoon, still in your pyjamas, with one hand because you've got a Cornetto in the other. And we're totally okay with that.
Brewmaster is really laid back. There are no fail states — or certainly none that we found. There’s no drama. Nobody dies. It’s just about brewing beer, and learning about beer, and then eventually entering a beer brewing competition to be crowned the titular Brewmaster™. That’s it. And we like it.
We upset the cliché goth girl who is like, really into horoscopes and stuff. We upset the ow'right guv'nor lad's lad who looked like he was AI generated using only the phrase "probably watches Love Island". We upset the dork student who actually got her book out and started reading it mid-date rather than talk to us. We upset everyone. Speed dating? Spite dating. That's the future.
But the soundtrack is excellent and perfectly complements your lonely swimming, the atmosphere is thick, and the occasionally wondrous moments are suitably awesome, in the literal sense. While you spend most of your time swimming alone in the grim dark of the sea, the moments where you find a sunken wreck or a friendly octopus act as a kind of catharsis, and always feel special.
Eternights' great success is that it manages to be more than the sum of its parts. The witty writing papers over the shakier aspects of the storytelling, the slight combat is used sparingly enough that its flaws rarely frustrate, and above all, it's got an undeniable charm despite its rough edges. We're swiping right on this one.
Planet Zoo is, ironically, a relatively toothless park building game. It doesn't have the delicious chaos of the Jurassic World Evolution games or the thrills of building your own rollercoaster and then hoping it'll stay on the tracks in Planet Coaster. But it's a pleasant and charming game. There's an airy joy in creating a peaceful home for animals to live in, and the earnest conservationist slant of Planet Zoo is hard to fault.
Mass Effect: Andromeda is a great game buried under a mountain poor design choices and narrative shortcomings. Everything is more complicated than it needs to be, and the sheer amount of busy work forced upon the player is staggering, but if you can be bothered to put in a few hours doing the admin there are plenty of rewards for fans of the series. It's not the Mass Effect you were hoping for, and it doesn't live up to the high standard set by the original trilogy, but as a jumping off point for a new trilogy in a new galaxy there are enough promising characters and intriguing story elements to suggest the Andromeda 2 might be everything you wished this game would be.
In the end, Unepic would probably be a better adventure game. This twenty hour or so unabashedly old school RPG is frequently broken up by conversations between characters and these interactions are amusing enough to make the often finicky platforming and combat sections worth persevering with. As a whole, the game has enough charm to recommend to fans of the genre, and those that stick around will likely be impressed by the surprisingly deep RPG mechanics and the Metroidvania approach to level design. However, it's hard not to wonder if the quality of the writing on display here would be better served in a game with a stronger focus on storytelling.