A perfectly serviceable JRPG, with an addictive Kingdom-building component, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is a charming game that falls short for its syrupy writing and the lack of a truly magic touch.
Pillars of Eternity is an elegant, beautiful, well-written piece of craftsmanship; it's proof that if we really want to, we can go back, but what we see there can't deliver on our fantasy.
This would have been better as a complete package, with all three chapters sewn together. Considering it’s a plan that Tarsier has had all along – teasing its DLC, as it did, long ago – its merits and additions would be more sating had they been swallowed by The Maw, along with everything else, from day one.
Survival, that most impermanent of genres, seems to have found permanent residency in the last few years, yet in a crowded space, Mojo Bones has made a mark. Impact Winter is dream-like and transfixing; it’s frustrating and brittle; and there is something truly special here you can just make out through the ice. If only it was given time to thaw.
There's a rough-cut, lo-fi patina to Get Even that adorns its good ideas like graffiti. With its edges scuffed and its heart in the right place, it feels like that now endangered species: the AA release. Long live dirty, flawed experimentation. This one’s different.
If you were a fan of the main game then you can't go wrong with the £3.99 this will set you back, but it's by no means essential.
Transient, vague, and awash with macabre sights and sounds, Little Nightmares is aptly named. Its gameplay is rote and minimal but its skew of images will stick in your craw like the fleeting fragments of a nightmare upon waking. The rest will fade.
What's here isn't bad at all; it's by no means best in class, but it does deliver on its premise. There is satisfaction to be gleaned from the battles if you buy into the strategy and tactics; there's a lot to take in here (well upwards of 30 hours); and it's dressed up in sumptuous art. If you're a sucker for a dungeon-crawler or for JRPGs, then this will sate your thirst two times over. There isn't much here to recommend to the uninitiated though.
It’s a game made by a small, four-man Swedish studio called Elden Pixels, and one that doesn’t contain an ounce of cynicism or irony; it’s made by retro enthusiasts who genuinely want to relive the glories of yesteryear. On the game’s Steam page, it is billed as a “retro game in a modern coat.”
The puzzles are very simple; the set-up and plot have all been done before; point-and-click has been done before, but that isn’t the point. The point is that when lovingly-crafted animation, when warm and sharply-written characters and lines of dialogue, and when simple, uncluttered play converge, you’re onto a winner.
It may not be beauty that lives in the eye of this one, but Beholder does have some intelligent moral conundrums to levy at you. Unfortunately, the repetition and dull play leave a big hole in the middle where the game’s heart should beat.
These additions have been layered on top of a very old chassis, and while they do stave off boredom for a little while, it feels like chugging cheap energy drinks to prolong the inevitable crash. When there are games out there like Rez and Geometry Wars that reinvent that chassis, it’s difficult to play something like Xenoraid and feel… well, much at all.
This had ‘perfectly fine’ written all over from when I first booted it up, but then it muddied the waters with a forgettable plot and tried to drag me away from the eye-reddening, ‘I should probably stop playing this now’ core of the game. Should you get it? If you like match 3 games then it’s a decent one, but then, if you like match 3 games you can get lots of them for free on your phone – which is surely a better home for them anyway.
Mother Russia Bleeds is a rose-tinted callback to the genre's giants. Playing the game, you will be reminded of the time spent in youth playing Final Fight, and Streets of Rage.
It isn't that we miss the mists of Arcadia Bay specifically, or that we long to retread old ground; it's the slow etching of stories, scattered with care.
The Sojourn is a well-made puzzle game with a firm challenge and fresh mechanics layered in throughout, but the symbolism draped over it all is vague and boring.
A seductive art style, hazy synth sounds, and some well-designed puzzles give The Gardens Between a pleasant mood, but it doesn't stay in the mind long after the credits.
Just Cause 4's thrills give way to repetition and a dull mission structure, but it's a ridiculous roller coaster while in full swing.
Rebellion has wrought a breezy shooter, angled it towards multiplayer, and burnished it with wit, but its minute-to-minute action is repetitive and feels imprecise.
The core racing model is a fluid rush, and a thrill to control through an intriguing, if undercooked world. It’s to 34BigThings’ credit that they make known where their crosshairs are trained, but the bite is that much harsher when they miss their mark.