Thomas Wilde
Here's why your summer vacation in Rockay City is a bad idea. Or maybe a good one, depending on how you feel about street wars with '90s rappers.
I’ve got a laundry list of other minor complaints, like how dumb the “boss fights” are, but the randomness is my biggest issue. It turns what could be an interesting, thoughtful sort of puzzle game into a series of pulls on a slot machine. That’s not necessarily entirely bad, and you can get some fun out of it regardless, but it’s a mixed bag.
Redfall's fun with friends, but there are a few problems with the formula.
Into the Pit is a retro FPS/roguelike that's far less than the sum of its parts. It's got great action, but everything that surrounds it is questionable.
Rogue Lords will really annoy your fundamentalist relatives, but is it any fun? Well... that's a complicated question.
There's the seed of a good game here, but it's underdeveloped. Garage has style and wit to spare, but its cheap deaths, poor map design, murky graphics, and frequent bugs all add up to a frustrating experience. I'm usually willing to give any zombie game more credit than most sensible people would, and even I can't recommend this.
Ikai is a game that, despite its hiccups in the opening acts, nails the landing. The focus on Naoko over random jump scares pays off, resulting in an enjoyable experience that will resonate with you for some time.
'ReVamped' is a flawed port of a flawed game, but 'BloodRayne' is so earnestly grindhouse that I've never been able to truly dislike it.
If you'd buy a summer home in the zombpocalypse, Dead Island 2 is for you. For anyone else, it's more complicated than that.
The Winters' Expansion doesn't add content to Resident Evil Village so much as it seasons it. There's some fun to be had here, but as a whole, it's a little insubstantial.
Kunio takes on ancient China in this mash-up of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and River City Ransom. Are these two great tastes that work together in any way at all?
A short burst of nostalgic cartoon violence, Final Vendetta is uneven but mostly entertaining.
If you're looking for a real beat'-em-up challenge, Sifu's got it, but it's not as fair as it is tough.
A weird story of transhumanism and criminals in a rebuilt futuristic Warsaw, Gamedec is an interactive detective novel that's more interesting than traditionally fun.
The '90s are back, sort of, in a comic book/urban fantasy mash-up that provides some co-op fun but can't quite live up to the rest of its genre.
You really need to play No Straight Roads. While the isn't amazing, the presentation is, and it's flawed in some truly interesting ways.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is an odd and often frustrating experience, with an escort mission front and center. There's a lot here that makes it worth checking out, though, even if only once.
Beyond that, however, I see Bleed's appeal, but it's a game that just isn't for me, at least not right now. It's a distinct experience in that it's a modern game dressed in a retro game's skin, with a substantial learning curve built into it before you're even competent. I don't think it's bad at all, but playing it feels like I've found myself in the cockpit of some vehicle that I don't know how to drive, five seconds before a crash. I figure there's a decent audience for this sort of game out there, but I'm not in it.
I would love to see a sequel that kept the Guild's basic premise and look but enabled you to keep equipment, sort your cards outside of combat, or hold on to character advancement. As the game stands right now, it kills time, and that's about it.
The Quarry is a fun, bloody thrill ride on your first playthrough, but its lack of interactivity and a lot of little issues drag down the whole.