John Little's Reviews
The game's positive elements shine through, but I can't help feeling annoyed at the poor attempts to diversify the content; made even more frustrating when the game ends at only 3 hours, with virtually no reason to replay it.
Wayward Manor, despite offering some cheap thrills, is irrefutably unpolished and lacks the variation, complexity and challenge that could have made this game a genuine treat.
It's all a great big, quirky, hallucinogenic trip, filled to the brim with charm and potential. But, unfortunately, the game's endearing qualities accentuate my one criticism of it – it just isn't long enough.
I'm ambivalent about its intentional uselessness as a means of creating humour, and the objective consequences of this. It's a game that succeeds at being defective – take from that what you will.
Fetch is a great character, with an interesting back-story. The gameplay is solid and addictive, and with the inclusion of the arenas and challenges there is a decent amount of content on offer.
Generally speaking, it's a great tower offence game. There are some fun objectives in the levels and the mixture of juggling abilities, your squad's set-up and their direction is quite a thrilling challenge, which makes for some very satisfying gameplay.
A sequel that expanded and improved in all the right places, and avoided the temptation of fixing things that weren't broken.
There's not much in the way of story to talk about (a cat decides to play a video game of itself saving ducks, what more do you want?), but the gameplay is solid all round. The aesthetic is cheery and exciting, the music pumping and catchy, and there is enough content to keep you going.
It's more like a tech demo than a fully-fledged game (albeit one with a decent, fully realised story). It shows that voice controls can benefit an RTS title, and that games that strive for that 'narrative experience' can also have compelling gameplay; but it never reaches its full potential.
If the mechanics were tighter and there was a bit more actual gameplay, then I would give this a more general recommendation, but as it is, only buy if you can tolerate lacking gameplay for story and setting.
It's not a perfect game – it can be frustrating and needlessly complicated at times – but the story, aesthetic, top notch voice acting and sound track, and creative inspiration more than make up for it.
I think the game has some unique spins on the episodic adventure genre. The shooting is a bit simplistic, but definitely adds some excitement; and I cannot wait to do some more investigating. It's just a shame the rest of the game is a little bland.
Sitting at an hour and a half with little replayability, it's a struggle to recommend. I did enjoy the story, and the gameplay shows some creativity, but it has an air of lacking content and unfinished design, and at £6.99 I'm not sure it's worth it.
Broforce is quite literally a blast to play. It has the humour down, the exhilarating precise combat and level design, the enemy variation, and not to mention a plethora of content to get stuck into.
There must have been more the developers could have done with the game to keep it going for longer, and considering some of the repetitiveness and a lack of interesting levels, I think they definitely should have. But otherwise, the game is well worth a look for any shooter or bullet hell fans. It's exciting and enjoyably challenging with an aesthetic and mechanical twist that sets it apart from the plethora of other shooters available.
If the game was a bit more forgiving then the changing level mechanics and hyper presentation wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately it isn't. It's bloody tough, and there are no difficulty options to alleviate this. But I don't know, maybe I'm just a noob and can't handle the stress. Maybe those rhythm elite will find a challenge here that they can't find elsewhere. Because otherwise the game is pretty solid.
The positives almost make up for the negatives, but the game lets itself down in one crucial area. It's way too short. A shame because the puzzling and exploration is good enough to warrant more of it, and the title is mostly pretty enjoyable and engaging.
The game is rugged in some departments and a little less ambitious than I had previously thought it would be, but Soul Axiom is still a well put together and intriguing experience. It's a cool world filled with sparkly tech surroundings, a multitude of far ranging level environments and some really enjoyable puzzle solving.
Lumo has bags of charm, and I’m actually quite impressed with the overall presentation and the variety of puzzles and platforming challenges, but it’s very hard to forgive for those clunky, inaccurate moments. The game became less enjoyable the more I played it, and the knowledge of that destroys any enthusiasm I might have had for playing it again
I found the tone was dropped a touch due to the shooting sections, and some of the more frustrating dialogue and choices created a rather chaotic experience. It’s also a damn shame that the game holds back on the investigations, since they're the best thing about this series. Hopefully episode three will be a little less silly and start playing to its own strengths.