Stefan L's Reviews
Rock of Ages 3 stretches the series' core concept to the limit, but this tower defence and boulder platforming hybrid has still got some legs. Adding a few new game modes and the new level creation tool extends the game's longevity, but ACE Team could do with refining a few of the rougher edges still in the game.
Beyond A Steel Sky has an enjoyable tale to tell that compliments the original game, building a newer, more modern dystopia atop the foundations of the Union City of old. It's just a shame that it's so rough around the edges.
Paper Mario: The Origami King is a solid, but unremarkable sequel. It's like a table of snack food at a party, where you'll happily nibble away just because you're stood next to it or feeling a bit peckish, but it's not exactly going to fill you up. The new battle puzzles and the boss fights in particular stand out, but the world and endless Toads fail to spark the same delight. This feels like a missed opportunity.
Rocket Arena is an energetic new take on the arena shooter that revels in and rewards skillful play with its projectile weaponry. There's breadth to the cartoony character line up, and while their varied weapons and abilities muddy the purity of the classic rocket arena concept, you'll quickly find a favourite and get to enjoy the frantic scrapping of the game's various modes.
Golf With Your Friends has all the rage-inducing charms of minigolf to savour while playing with your chums. With plenty of varied courses to play through and some good variations, there's a lot of fun to be had, even if the game often feels inconsistent and unpolished.
Ooh, aah, that's how it always starts, then later there's running and screaming. Deep Rock Galactic can be deceptively easy going at times, right up until the swarms of bugs come crawling out of the inky darkness to besiege you and your friends. Who knew space dwarf mining could be so fun?
As far as physics puzzling games go, Good Job! does a pretty good job of it. There's a few rough edges and occasional annoyances from the genre as a whole, but with a quirky set up and visual style, there's fun to be had climbing this particular corporate ladder.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the perfect island escape, drawing you in to play day after day. All of the charms of the series' previous games are here, but with gorgeous new graphics, DIY crafting and the eventual ability to remodel your island, you can really create the island settlement of your dreams.
If you like video games, have a sense of humour and remember the mid-90s, there's far worse things you can do for half an hour. Just don't buy it on its own.
Two Point Hospital's performance is better on PS4 than Switch, but whichever platform you choose to play on, it's a fun hospital sim with bags of personality and humour.
Lair of the Clockwork God is a genre mash-up that probably shouldn't work, and yet it does. It feels a little unrefined, intentionally so, but there's plenty of comedic fodder in indie platformers, modern gaming and life for Ben and Dan to riff off through the lens of classic LucasArts style adventures.
Through the highs and lows of a newfound love, Florence is a wonderfully told and emotive story that engages you in such simple, but effective ways.
If you like shooting zombies with friends, then Zombie Army 4: Dead War is the game for you. There's a few new twists and several layers of progression now thrown into the mix, as you battle undead Nazis once again, but this is classic undead sniping action through and through.
Rugby 20 is like a Northern Hemisphere team's World Cup campaign. It's full of big ideas and good intentions, but a shock defeat here and an expected loss to the South's big boys there, and it soon comes off the rails. There's some fun to be had, but it's often at the expense of the game, not because of it.
Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch is a solid return for the series, mixing classic minigames with a handful of new ones that use the Switch's various capabilities – and which exclude those with a Switch Lite. Just as with the original, it's going to be easy to drop in for a few minutes a day and test yourself, but this isn't really doing much more than the DS games.
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep is another solid expansion for Bungie's addictive looter shooter. It's a mixed bag, building on the solid foundations of Destiny 2: Forsaken with some ideas working better than others. This is a new era for Bungie though, with an ambitious vision of a game that's constantly evolving from week to week, and the first glimpses of this already giving me real optimism for its future.
Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince is a lovely return for the series' 2.5D puzzle platforming. It tinkers with and broadens the gameplay options to be more welcoming, and levels can feel a little stretched out at times, but grab a couple of friends and stick it on Classic mode, and this will delight fans of those first two games.
Sniper Elite 3 Ultimate Edition acquits itself nicely on Nintendo Switch. It looks good, it performs solidly, there's a couple of nice tweaks made for the Switch, and there's a wealth of great stealthy sniping content to be found within this compilation. Really it's a fairly standard feeling port, but alongside the V2 remaster, it's a good excuse to revisit the series and see how far it's evolved.
With a quirkiness to it that stands out from the rest of the series, Link's Awakening still holds up beautifully well as a modern 2D Zelda game. Outside of some nagging performance issues, Link's Awakening is a wonderful remake of a Game Boy classic.
The science fiction setting puts a compelling new spin on Age of Wonders: Planetfall, with a lengthy single player campaign and half a dozen contrasting factions to see rise from the ashes of the Star Union. There's some niggles I have on console, but this is easy to recommend if you're hankering for a new 4X strategy game.