Everything about Deer Hunter: Reloaded feels like a mockery of hunting and gamers that happen to enjoy hunting. From the horrific animations to pointless single-track mobility to the fact that you can simply game the system by fast traveling between areas to refresh their animals. Though it may be something of a port of the mobile Deer Hunter, what we have on Xbox One is a mess of bad animations, unrealistic bullet physics, and a near-identical acquisition yet horrific attempt at Rebellion's signature X-Ray slow motion Kill Cam is laughably bad. If you truly despise someone, Deer Hunter: Reloaded would be the perfect gift to give them.
Killing Floor 2 is the sequel to Tripwire Interactive's 2009 cult hit Killing Floor, which is actually a full release of the popular Unreal Tournament mod that debuted in 2004. With a long and relatively successful history, Tripwire took to the masses back in November 2016 by releasing Killing Floor 2 on Windows and PlayStation 4 platforms to favorable reviews (scoring around 75% on MetaCritic). Nearly a year later Killing Floor 2 has finally come to Xbox One and those of us that prefer Microsoft's home console for FPS games are finally able to join the fray… Unfortunately for us though, Killing Floor 2 feels a bit dead in the water, lifeless, and redundant given the abundance of far superior first person shooters available today.
Immortal: Unchained has a long way to go and though this may have been its full release, it really should still be in Beta as they tweak the engine to provide some semblance of the promised third-person shooter/hardcore action-RPG.
Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a love story to 90's JRPGs merged with one of the most recognizable names in comics, Joe Madureira. Based on "Joe Mad's" own Battle Chasers comic line, Nightwar is a gorgeous dungeon-diving affair with a story that is instantly familiar to old fans of the franchise. Unfortunately what would largely be a stunning and extremely approachable game with affable characters, excellent pacing, and tons of replayability due to its randomly-generated dungeon, is a hot mess of technical issues. Given another two or three months of QA testing and Battle Chasers: Nightwar would be a contender for best RPG of the year.
Sad as I am to say, NASCAR Heat Evolution is one to stay away from unless you are the most die-hardiest of NASCAR fans and are quite apologetic for its dismal online play, bizarre progression system (level up by unlocking tracks, and vice versa), and stale audio.
Conan Exiles could have been so good, so rich, but instead it turned out to be an awkward and often poor experience just on the gameplay mechanics alone. Add in the poor framerate on consoles and you will likely do as I did and turn the game off for a spell, hoping against hope that further console optimization without any additional loss in graphical fidelity happens (hint, it likely will not happen). Even the animations do not know where to stand in the quality and functionality of Conan Exiles, as many are plastic or wooden looking while others are smooth as a buttered baby's backside. Hell, even the environments are confused … Water? It is stunning but grass and shrub textures? Purely out of the mid-2000's. Once Conan Exiles is able to take itself seriously it may actually turn out to be a decent game, but by then it may be too late.
Tales of Berseria is the long-awaited pseudo-prequel to 2015's Tales of Zestiria (which we loved). Set in the same world, Berseria takes place many centuries prior to the events of Tales of Zestiria, where the world is torn asunder by daemons during a Scarlet Night (which is also, occasionally referred to as the crimson moon) and the young protagonist Velvet is on a crusade of revenge and hatred. Velvet and her merry band of misfits will embark on a journey that tries to be something that it is not. A poor script, struggling combat mechanics, and a world full of contradictions, Tales of Berseria is one of the weakest in the long-running franchises.
I think that it's moments like these that SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays really plays upon, and plays upon them very well. Sure there are tactical aspects to your decisions, including customizing your troop gear, but where SD Gundam really grew on me … was in its ability to bring forth some of the most precious moments in my early Gundam fandom, and for that I say "well done."
Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds is a historical fantasy visual novel set in the Bakumatsu period in Japan and puts you in the shows of Chizuru-san, a young woman determined to find her father in Kyoto. As part one in a two-part series that is the retelling of the original Hakuoki released in 2008, you will romance a number of handsome samurai (some are new to help justify the cost of Kyoto Winds) in search of details surrounding your father's whereabouts. Though it pushes over 80 hours of content with 30 unique endings, Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds feels more like a prolonged cash grab in a genre that is often taken advantage of.
From a technical standpoint, the port to PlayStation 4 that supports 4k textures, is excellent; it is smooth (minus the wooden, garbage-like animations), bright, and full of intense colors and detailed hand-drawn textures, but a new paint job is not enough to fix what is wrong with The Legend of Heroes: Trails Of Cold Steel … and that is that it is old.
I think that the most shocking aspect of Blood Bowl is that it has been around since the mid-80's, with the first tabletop release being in 1986. I guess that goes to show how much I paid attention to it when walking into a GamesWorkshop retail store (when they still existed in abundance here in the States), though I was admittedly staring at the gorgeously painted models, so I had eyes for little else.
The Technomancer is the equivalent of a cheesy 90's sci-fi action flick mashup; think Steven Seagal's Under Siege meets Jesse Ventura's Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe all set in the dusty red planet of yesteryear's classics like Total Recall or Dune. For as grand as that sounds, fans of past Spiders titles may be a bit disappointed in the lack of varied gameplay between titles. Others that are new to the universe may be a bit let down by the lack of depth, yet carried along by a decent supporting cast, an interesting and fun if trope-y story, and stellar world-building. While Technomancer may not be deep, overly fulfilling, or entirely sophisticated, it does contain an abundance of charm. Charm not unlike your favorite campy films of years gone by.
While the Sniper: Ghost Warrior games are in no need of an introduction, I myself am new to the Ghost Warrior line of Sniper titles and was a bit unsure of what to expect when going into CI Games' Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3. From the developers of the criminally under-appreciated Lords of the Fallen, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 takes the previously-linear tactical snipe-fest and opens the franchise up. Though enjoyable, the open-world aspects of Ghost Warrior 3 do tend to pull away a bit from what it is that it does best, and that is sniper rifle-filled tomfoolery. Half-hearted open world shenanigans aside, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 an excellent tactical sniping title set in a beautiful world that tends to get in the way of itself.
With a little time and a lot of patience, plus a heap of optimization by the developers, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground’s blend of turn-based tactical gameplay and lite rogue-like elements could easily join the cast of greats- with its stellar music, unique and well-designed playable races, and lore-rich setting, Storm Ground falls just short of that trifecta of excellence found in more prominent Warhammer titles. With hope, we will see updates in the near future to help smooth out the experience, but as it stands at the time of this writing, Storm Ground can be bland at best and perfectly skippable at worst.
Killing Floor 2 is the sequel to Tripwire Interactive's 2009 cult hit Killing Floor, which is actually a full release of the popular Unreal Tournament mod that debuted in 2004. With a long and relatively successful history, Tripwire took to the masses back in November 2016 by releasing Killing Floor 2 on Windows and PlayStation 4 platforms to favorable reviews (scoring around 75% on MetaCritic). Nearly a year later Killing Floor 2 has finally come to Xbox One and those of us that prefer Microsoft's home console for FPS games are finally able to join the fray… Unfortunately for us though, Killing Floor 2 feels a bit dead in the water, lifeless, and redundant given the abundance of far superior first person shooters available today.
theHunter: Call of the Wild totes itself as offering "the most immersive hunting experience ever created" and while it has more than its share of charm, to label it as such is a bit steep. Whether you are trekking through the American Pacific Northwest at the Layton Lake District hunting reserve, or you are slumming through the Hirschfelden Hunting Reserve, a digital re-representation of German farmlands, theHunter: Call of the Wild is fun at first, but devolves into a mind-numbing walk through the 50-square mile, Apex-generated environment that tends to drive you to bored wandering. It sure is pretty though.
BATTLETECH, released to critical acclaim 18 months ago, has been kept relatively fresh with the dripfeed DLC that Paradox and Harebrained has put out. From its stellar launch, brutal DLC, or its pinnacle send-off with Heavy Metal, has brought long nostalgia to the fore and kept it there. Though the Heavy Metal DLC offers a number of different loadout possibilities, it sadly, brings little new to the table by way of meaningful content. What content it does bring is exceptional, well-crafted, and exceptionally detailed and adds plenty of replayability; there is just that slight, tight tug of desire and longing.
Outward is a fun, challenging, if empty and slightly misguided, open-world roleplaying game where death is not only common, but guaranteed (do not be like me and accidentally drink the salt water; you will die … fast). Beautiful but hollow, Outward is an absolute must for those looking for something different, but be warned, you might bite off more than you can choose.
Empires Apart is a beautiful mess of a game. Designed with competitive multiplayer in mind, Empires Apart takes the fast-paced action of a professional StarCraft II match and sticks it into a graphically-stunning world that is a near-mimic of Age of Empires. Wear it falls flat though, is in the fact that if you are playing more casually, you will be destroyed, period. Speed is key and the utterly ridiculous keybindings do everything they can to prevent you from efficiently building your empire and destroying your enemies. With a little balance and far more work put into the keybindings and interface, Empires Apart could be an excellent alternative to RTS gamers that are tired of being utterly destroyed in the StarCraft II ladders.
I recently previewed Warhammer 40,000 Eternal Crusade and, like most Warhammer games in the last few years, I was let down. Severely. Enter the lovable folks at Fatshark games and Pierre-Yve's glowing review of Vermintide on the PC and I thought "Here it is, finally, a Warhammer game to be proud of!" I was wrong, and that pains me to admit it. Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide is not a bad game, but it is a bad port.