Stuart Gollan
- Medieval II: Total War
- Mass Effect
- NFL Blitz
Stuart Gollan's Reviews
As a mixed martial arts simulator it fails in some key areas and as a balanced, competitive fighting game it just doesn’t compare to the champions of the genre, 2D or 3D, offering limited depth and distinction between fighters.
I’ve never been more invested in a rugby league video game than the best moments I had with Rugby League Live 4, but without fail it was stripped away from me every time, leaving me frustrated, angry. If you could forgive Rugby League Live 3 its flaws and enjoy it, then this sequel will leave you as happy as Fatty and King Wally after Origin 3. For those of us that found the previous Live games unsatisfying, we’ll always have the Blues.
Rugby Challenge 3 brings menus, fonts, controls, modes and gameplay over wholesale from Rugby Challenge 2, adding only token extras and spicing up the graphics to fit a current generation release. Not that Rugby Challenge 3 looks great; to compare it to Madden or FIFA is embarrassing.
At launch, Eagle Flight doesn’t offer enough for the near-full price it charges. Single player isn’t enough to justify a purchase and multiplayer isn’t populous enough to get regular matches. Eagle Flight gets the basics right, flight is great and combat can be full of excitement, the game just doesn’t build much on that strong foundation.
This is yet another rugby league game that requires patience and understanding to enjoy, compromises we have been expected to make for 20 years now and with so many other legitimately great games out there, both sports and otherwise, they are compromises few should or will make.
Beyond the minigames there isn’t a lot here. You have a playroom to store unlocked toys and throw them around a bit should you wish. It offers about three minutes of entertainment. The overworld carnival is populated by freakish bearded women and young children with supernatural reflexes, dodging every projectile you launch their way. The carnival barker attempts to be amusing, mostly without success, and will soon be repeating himself to the point you curse that he too has supernatural reflexes.
I had some fun with Pixel Gear but it is hard to recommend. There is about two hours worth of content here and before I’d even finished the first level on normal difficulty my mind was wandering. Higher difficulties are more engaging but this is a shallow, simple shooting gallery you would expect from a motion control minigame collection, adding a VR layer to expand it to 180 degree action isn’t enough and even if you are engaged there is no way to compete against yourself, let alone the world. Thoroughly mediocre.
Risk: Urban Assault is a decent game wrapped in a terrible package disrespectful of the player and their time. It throws pointless animations, cutscenes and bloat into a board game that is already well known for being a soul sucking grind. If this was just a board game I’d begrudgingly recommend it to people who really like Risk but as a video game I find it hard to recommend to anybody.
If motion controls worked I could mildly recommend Ace Banana for those who want their archery fix or just enjoy a decent arcade game. It is moderately priced for a VR game and for the brief moments it works properly it is immersive. With no way to guarantee you won’t have motion control issues (looking online I am hardly alone in my complaints here) I can only recommend Ace Banana if you desperately need a fix of mediocre motion controlled VR.
Rugby 15 is barely playable and certainly nothing like rugby.
A cooperative, massively multiplayer Animal Crossing meets Minecraft meets Tower Defence sounds like a great idea, but The Tomorrow Children doesn't do enough in any of these directions to be a worthwhile purchase in its current state.