Dylan Chaundy's Reviews
Ultimately, the bland, dreary combat sinks the entirety of the experience and it's with a heavy heart that I must warn you to avoid this title if you have any choice in the matter. Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic is a swing and a woeful miss.
Thanks to poor "bigger is better" design choices, technical gaffes, obtuse exploration, a bromidic narrative, and zero atmosphere, Control is soul-crushingly disappointing, and a mere shadow of the studio's far superior Alan Wake.
Similar to a cloaked Yautja hopping through the jungle canopies above, you'll have to look pretty damn hard to see the fun in Predator: Hunting Grounds.
Payday 2 can be a fun little time-sink, if you've got some friends to join you on your bank-robbing escapades. However, due to a lack of voice-chat, some soul-crushingly lackluster AI, and regular performance issues, the game's fun is often the real prisoner that gets held hostage.
There are definitely some cool ideas in Rain World, but the moment-to-moment gameplay is far too unsatisfying to wholeheartedly recommend.
There's definitely fun to be had in Lock's Quest, it's just unfortunately locked behind a wall of frustrating control issues.
All told, when Layers of Fear (2023) is firing on all cylinders, it feels like a genuinely mind-bending thrill ride as pathways behind you twist and contort in the blink of an eye. These qualities are best exemplified in the lithe and tight debut title. That said, what truly flies in the face of the collection’s overall charms is its uneven storytelling, repetitive puzzles, and buggy technical performance. In essence, much like the fractured psyches of the artists that form the soul of these vignettes, Bloober Team’s latest collection is simultaneously beautiful, fascinating, and deeply, profoundly… aggravating.
While Call Of Cthulhu's eerie atmosphere and compelling narrative impress, some technical and design issues -- like long load times, wonky facial animations and uninspired puzzle designs -- injure the Lovecraftian horror experience, which ultimately holds it back from true greatness.
When things click, Conan Exiles is a unique and moreish survival-RPG that does scratch a primal itch. Unfortunately, it's also sadly mired by a multitude of bugs, framerate stutters, audio dropouts and some head-scratchingly confusing menu systems.
Rogue Trooper Redux is a fun little curio. If you're after a solid, old-school "blast from the past" style shooter, you could do far worse.
With the tight action carrying the game the majority of the way, this may well be a tough sell for those who aren’t into niche Japanese titles. However, for those who enjoy fluid combat and revel in the strange and the bizarre, this may well be exactly what Galen of Pergamon ordered.
Necropolis is a decent stab at creating a Souls roguelike. If it had that all-important "just one more go" feeling nailed, what we would have here would be something truly special. Unfortunately, it’s merely the cold shadow of a much warmer bonfire.
It may not be outstanding to look at, or indeed listen to, but Crimsonland is a pure, easy-to-pick-up gameplay experience that comes dangerously close to becoming pretty addictive stuff.
Though Lichtspeer may not be the deepest experience around, its confluence of moreish gameplay and eye-catchingly ice-cool presentation is a devilishly fun time that has the potential to spear ol' boredom right between the eyes.
E.T. Armies is a well-made indie FPS with a few caveats that occasionally detract from a mostly enjoyable experience. The narrative is pretty forgettable and the lack of controller options may put some unsuspecting players off, but the moment-to-moment gunplay is the real draw here and it shines through brightly. If you're in the mood for some mindless, albeit budget, action then E.T. Armies has got you covered. If only it had a catchier name.
Nevertheless, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a lot of fun with Exoprimal. With its satisfying shooting, well-designed co-op, and unique yet lighthearted narrative and tone, Capcom’s team-based shooter can often be a genuine thrill, especially when your team synergises together in unison. Sure, it may be big, dumb, turn-off-your-brain fun, but, sometimes that’s all you really need, right?
All in all, it may sound like I’m really down on The Callisto Protocol, and in some ways, I am. For those who were expecting the next Dead Space, I’m sad to report that The Callisto Protocol just isn’t quite it. Instead, Striking Distance Studios has crafted a largely by-the-numbers horror-action title with terrific presentation that could’ve been something truly special. Unfortunately, while your journey across the titular dead moon is a sporadically fun and entertaining ride, it fails to authentically push the genre forward in any meaningful way. Still, despite all that… at least you get to stomp on stuff, right? Phew!
These days, though, these kinds of experiences are undoubtedly a tougher sell, but it’s hard to be too down when you’re sporting tacos as shoes, head-butting ballerinas to produce humungous tornadoes, while the locals shoot laser beams from out their eyes for eating a cupcake. Yes, there may be some life in the ol’ goat yet, but it’s probably fair to say that the joke is beginning to wear a little thin… well, a tiny bit, anyway.
Castle Morihisa is much more of a straight up retread of Slay The Spire, which is simultaneously its strongest asset and its Achilles’ heel at the same time. While fans of the genre will find it hard not to love, and though its structure is built upon another game’s foundations, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a helluva fun time scaling your way to the top of its spire.
Though it comes with a few control quirks and team AI quibbles, Aegis Defenders is still an engaging experience that marries two unlikely genres together in smart and clever ways.