Ben Salter's Reviews
While combat may become repetitive, it’s more than serviceable, and fits in against the backdrop of an action-RPG that’s about so much more than killing goons — even if there is a lot of that. It’s a game that finally lets you live your dreams of 20 years ago, with a chance to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and have your own magical adventure.
The Resident Evil 4 remake is a darker, more intense and safely faithful remake of one of the greatest games of all time. It’s the best way to play for new players with updated controls and a modern styling. It avoids the missteps of RE3 remake by staying very true to its source material – so close that it's reluctant to make improvements for fear of changing too much.
It’s an uncompromising old-school brawler than manages to feel both out-dated and timeless in its brutal gameplay, but that’s only part of the package. Yakuza 0 is all about its characters, with a compelling story that grabs you and won’t let go.
With options to enable or exclude CPU racers, local multiplayer is the best of everything in Fast RMX, and at a very reasonable price. Even if you're pencilled in Mario Kart's encore as your multiplayer racing game on Switch, there's plenty of time to get in some quality time with the budget Fast RMX.
The tweaks mostly relate to Toadette/Peachette and Nabbit as playable characters, but nothing really stands out.
Any new ideas have clearly been held back for when the new consoles are actually obtainable by the masses, but FIFA leaves the Xbox One and PS4 in a pretty good place — and with some extra pace — in 2020/21, still with plenty of scope to go from good to great next-generation.
Mario Strikers Battle League is a lot of fun, but unless you commit to online play, it’s here for a good — but brief — time.
The multiplayer isn’t deeply flawed, it’s just boringly safe. We’ve had this movement system for three years, and there are better implementations of it in and outside of the franchise. The maps aren’t particularly well designed and the RIG system isn’t all that dissimilar to Specialists from Black Ops III, but needlessly makes loadouts more complicated without improving them. Matchmaking is atrocious and desperately needs to be fixed. Early in my online career, as a lowly level 5, I was constantly matched with players well above my rank. It’s impossible to compete against well-drilled teams with considerably better weapons, and that happened on a consistent basis. Even worse is imbalanced teams. I’ve been in too many objective matches that begin as four against six. By the time the teams have been balanced, which takes way too long, the result is known.
It's the best of Mario Tennis and Wii Sports motion tennis rolled into one game, but in distinct and very seperate modes, it just lacks one thing: being able to play a proper set of tennis.
I like that Ubisoft is continuing to support For Honor and all that’s included from a content perspective. Both Breach and Arcade improve the overall package, the new fighters will be appreciated by the dedicated community and it’s great to see a visual improvement 18 months post-launch.
Paper Mario The Origami King is a delightfully charming game, with a vibrant open world to explore and endearing characters that are genuinely funny, so long as you can handle a healthy dose of dad jokes.
Mario Golf Super Rush remains easy to pick up and play, but it’s lacking the final coat of polish we expect from Nintendo games, and is light on content for a full priced Switch game. It’s a Mario sport game that can be picked up and played by a wide audience, but has positioned itself to only really appeal to dedicated fans of Mario Golf.
As Dusk Falls is the non-game narrative adventure for your non-gaming family and housemates. It’s the most engaged I’ve ever seen my lapsed casual gamer partner in a videogame and that’s because it has the familiar story pacing of a six-part TV series and almost no gameplay, which means minimal barrier to entry.
The problem with Super Bomberman R, as a fun but limited local multiplayer game you've played many times before, is its hefty price tag.
Viewed in context, there’s plenty of fun to be had here for fans of the show.
While the story didn’t live up to expectations, the actors’ performances are fantastic as Man of Medan delivers its quota of horror tropes in chapter one of The Dark Pictures Anthology.
What we have here is a very similar, yet different, version of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl in high definition on Switch, but it’s not definitively the best version to play today, as was the case with FireRed/LeafGreen, HeartGold/SoulSilver and Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby when they launched. While it’s not a stunningly brilliant or shining remake, it is a very faithful one that plays it safe and is a welcome return to Sinnoh for those with fond memories of visiting on the DS — but I’m more excited to see what’s new in the region with Pokémon Legends Arceus.
Cricket 24 is a curious case of being one of the best in the series, but with such minor changes over Cricket 22 that it feels like we’re watching a replay during a rain delay. That makes it hard to recommend if you’re already invested in past games. For new players, it remains as accessible as a sport as complicated as cricket can be. With a bevvy of returning control options and difficulties, there’s a way to play for all skill levels. Cricket 24 is still at its best when bat meets ball, and there are more licensed modes than ever before headlined by reliving the 2023 Ashes and forging a lengthy career – but the same experience can be had, without Gilly, at a fraction of the cost with Cricket 22.
Dead Rising 4 is basically Dead Rising 3 with crazier weapons, more zombies to decimate and the grand return of original protagonist Frank West – with gameplay that’s almost unrecognisable to his original tale.
Steep is a bit like being taught how to ski by an imbecile masquerading as a qualified instructor. Someone like your mate Dave, who has seen snow once in 28 years, but instils a false sense of sensible education. You’ll be fascinated by the beauty, and grow to crave the thrill; but eventually the spiral of incompetence will threaten to kill you, so you’ll throw down your hired polls in frustration and return to the solace of the bar, a more natural environment, and vow never to return.