Stefan L's Reviews
Luigi's Mansion 2 HD is a handsome remaster of a great 3DS game, but it now lives in the shadow of its sequel. It's still a fun time, though, and a great chance for newer Luigi's Mansion 3 fans to get some more ghostbusting action in.
After decades of waiting, Homeworld 3 pushes the beloved space RTS series in new directions with megalithic terrain putting a fresh spin on combat, and a bitesized roguelite War Games mode, but still retains so much of the original tone and style. It doesn't quite stick the landing in some areas, and there's rough edges to improve, but I simply love being back in this setting and series.
American Arcadia takes The Truman Show's core concept and updates it for the 2020s with a two-sided tale of escape, freedom and corporate control. The gameplay is mainly there to help deliver this story, but I always wanted Trevor to keep running to get me to the final moments and grand reveal.
WarioWare: Move It! calls back to the early excitement of the Wii and motion controlled gaming. There's a ton of daft and inventive microgames here (with a slightly surprising amount of bum shaking), that's great for solo, co-op and multiplayer, but brace yourself for some wonky motion controls and fleetingly frustrating failures.
F1 Manager 23 evolves and grows upon the foundations of Frontier's motorsports sim, adding an accessible new Race Replay mode based on real-world events, and expanding some key options for team management. However, it's not quite there with the overall presentation, and there's some AI quirks that you need to babysit through race weekends, whether you're fighting for every point possible or hunting for championships.
Whether being completely cut off from civilisation is a fantasy or a nightmare to you, Stranded: Alien Dawn includes everything from base building as hunter-gatherers, to rediscovering technology and eventually making a successful escape, or setting up a rugged military base. It's just a bit limited in terms of thematic variety, and needs a little more work on the console controls and UI, but constructs a compelling sci-fi take on the survival management sim genre.
Dead Island 2 does a great job of reanimating this dormant zombie-battling series, with the gore-filled combat and excessive weaponry that goes well with the oversaturated LA setting. It's an enjoyable romp, but at the same time, ironically feels like it's playing it safe.
Meet Your Maker is a cunning blend of testing your skills and wits against devious deathtraps, and the creative joys of creating your own murderous mazes. The progression systems are a bit slow, the restrictions it puts on your ability to create levels somewhat restrictive, but there's the foundations of a game here that Behaviour Interactive can build upon.
While it paints its dystopian future in broad strokes and has some rough edges, there's a worthwhile and enjoyable tale to experience within The Last Worker.
With a solid and dependable blaster-led Star Wars adventure as its basis, there's more to Tales from the Galaxy's Edge than initially meets the eye, with the most fun to be had in the side tales picked up in Seezelslak's bar. This has had a big glow up since its original Meta Quest release, but left me wanting something more consistently inventive and truly built for PSVR 2 and higher powered systems. Hopefully we'll get to see that in future.
Cosmonious High makes being the new kid in class feel truly special. It's not quite as universal as the "robots do human things" humour of Job Simulator, but never gives up on being positive, from the alien character designs, to the vibrant colour palette, and the sandbox of simple puzzles and powers to use. It's just missing that half step of complexity as a VR experience.
Leaning on the power of PS5, Kayak VR: Mirage is filled with wonderful locations to visit around the world and explore with paddle in hand. It looks stunning and makes for a great way to demo PSVR 2 or VR in general, but personally, I was left wanting something a little more.
With a positively batty sense of humour, What The Bat? is a thoroughly daft VR successor to What The Golf? and the best baseball game I've played in years – also the only baseball game I've played.
We Were Here Forever certainly grew on us the more we played, with some great brain-teasing puzzles that really make the most of the split player perspectives (though we did give up on the walkie-talkies).
Deliver Us Mars is another engaging science fiction tale with something to say about our modern world. This message is wrapped in a more personal story this time around, that's bolder in how it tells it, and mixes it well with broader action and puzzling, so it's just a shame that the game can't match that ambition with some technical weaknesses even on the latest consoles.
High on Life is a conflicted game. On the one hand it's a solid shooter that often feels like more than the sum of its parts, and comes with an engaging art style and ideas, but the sense of humour is just so subjective that it's hard to recommend to anyone that isn't a die hard Rick and Morty fan.
A Little to the Left is a charming and refreshingly cosy puzzle game to sink into. From the tone of the puzzles to the mischievous intrusions of a fluffy white cat, it's a simple delight, only let down by a few more obscure puzzles and fussy controls for certain object interactions.
F1 22 is like a slice of birthday cake a couple days after the party. Someone (probably your dad) has pinched the glacé cherry from the cream splodge on top of your Black Forest Gateau, but your mum's put some regular cherries, banana and apple slices on the plate to it to make up for it. The fruit doesn't make sense, but the cake's still pretty good. Still, you're left dreaming of what next year's cake will be like. Maybe your cake engineer will be smart enough by then to actually know who you're racing against, and maybe Will Buxton will get some new jeans that don't look like they've carved out of stone. Maybe it'll be a carrot cake.
Played together with a group of friends and the wild array of modifiers mixing things up, Golf Gang is an absolute hoot, especially as both shot play and time count to your score. It's a party game through and through, but just feels a bit light (as many mini golf games do) when played on your own.
Happy Home Paradise gives you the easiest job in the world. Creating holiday homes for various Animal Crossing characters is about as pressure-free as it gets when you're given a clear direction, a curated set of furniture to choose from, and the knowledge that the customer will love whatever it is that you do. There's no risk of a Changing Rooms disaster here. It's another avenue to express yourself in New Horizons, just don't expect much challenge, critique or need to think too far out of the box.