Much like last year's The Making of Karateka, Digital Eclipse’s format sets a high standard for retro collections going forward. It's made the story of these games accessible to all audiences. As a portrait of Jeff, it’s a heartwarming and educational depiction of a personality every gamer should know about.
PlateUp! successfully differentiates itself from the cooking sim next door. While its roguelite elements encourage repeat attempts and reward your failures, fiddly controls, and awkward UI hinder its appeal as an undocked co-op experience. Fortunately, on a big screen, it's great fun.
As much as this engages as a sobering alternative to the likes of Two Point Hospital, a large chunk of it just sees you cycling through familiar motions. The rich atmosphere and worthy setting are compromised by a narrow vision.
Another miss for the Rings franchise, then. There are bursts of quality here, and the potential for fun when playing with others. However, it ultimately fails as an adaptation and a survival game.
Worldless attempts to differentiate itself from its peers by adding satisfying turn-based combat to the usual Metroidvania loop. It largely succeeds, helped by an intoxicating art style and varied puzzle mechanics. Some difficulty spikes interrupt the flow and knock the dreamlike exploration off balance, but you'll feel compelled to overcome them.
Other than the online tournament mode, it's a bare bones experience. Longevity of this will hinge on future content and more diverse play options (couch co-op in particular). In its current state, though, the bite-sized events offer a welcome alternative to the rat race of other party royale titles.
Web of Wyrd is clearly created by people with a reverence for Mignola's work and impresses as an adaptation. However, as a roguelike and a brawler, it underwhelms.
For anyone familiar with the series (and the RTS genre itself), Company of Heroes 3 is a solid but flawed entry. For newcomers, getting to grips with the controls and trudging through the patchy Italian campaign might not be worth the price of enlistment. However, if you do learn its intricacies, you're rewarded with fantastic, intense combat. It's a great effort to translate the RTS to console even with one or two issues.
Zool was a classic back in the day, but it didn't endure as much as other genre luminaries. This remaster enhances what was great about the original title while adding some modern elements to sweeten the deal.
Embers' debut game is beautifully presented, with an interesting but flawed combat system. Lovely music (thanks to Journey composer Austin Wintory) and exciting boss battles make it worth your time.
This mashup of shooter, stealth, and RPG wears its influences proudly but rarely matches them. Its alt-history setting is interesting and there are plenty of ways to approach the robot-killing, but these elements are at odds with messy storytelling and characterisation.
Ultimately, with Return to Monkey Island, original creators Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman have not only crafted a loving throwback to a genre they helped popularise, they've also reinvigorated it.
A blue collar simulator-cum-puzzle game, where each ship feels like a mini-campaign, Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a truly unique and rewarding experience, if you have the time and patience to clock in and put in the work.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is in no way the failure that Colonial Marines was. It's a fun squad shooter with just about enough features at launch to keep you coming back to replay missions and tackle the horde mode. However, it's not the strongest game of its type and really doesn't seem to fit the license.
All gripes aside, if you're a fan of JRPGs in general, particularly the urban sprawl and social checklists of Persona, you will absolutely love NEO: The World Ends With You. This property deserves a series as expansive as its Disney-sponsored big brother, and hopefully, this sequel and the connected anime series will justify a true current-gen instalment at some point in the future.
This is the same old Torchlight, but somewhat diminished. Classes are full of character and lots of fun to play, while Relic abilities encourage experimentation and significantly change combat. However, there's nothing especially new or exciting about this third instalment.
All in all, Intertial Drift offers a fun variation on drift racing with a broad level of challenge. A great visual style and plenty to do distract from the somewhat low-budget execution.
Ultimately, this isn't the Samurai Jack game of your dreams. But despite its flaws, this is a good action game that will please fans, and its simplistic nature may even introduce the property to a younger audience.
Critical hits prevent the Necron from using their regenerative abilities, while certain weapons offer escalating buffs that give extra damage multipliers the more you use them. These elements combine to make fights satisfyingly varied from mission to mission.
In One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, becoming a hero for fun isn't all it's cracked up to be. Saitama is a hilariously game breaking gimmick that pays off in single-player, but online he only leads to frustration. Elsewhere,the main story mode has plenty to do, but there's not much variety. Fans will mostly enjoy the writing and the fighting, but newcomers might be left wanting.