Jay Ball
- Oddworld: Strangers Wrath
- The Last of Us
- Portal 2
Jay Ball's Reviews
Currently, I’m roughly 9-10 hours in to Suicide Squad and I feel pretty confident I’ve seen all that it has to offer by way of gameplay. To be honest, I don’t really want to spend any more time with it. That not how this works, of course — I’ve not yet spent enough time to properly score this fairly and accurately because we received our review code three days after the refund window closed on the die-hard DC fans that forked out ridiculous sums for early access, and only 13 hours before its general release. Do what you will with that information.
I envy anyone out there experiencing No Man's Sky for the first time this month.
It's poorly made and is, hands down, the worst game I've ever played. The fact that the end credits didn't include a personal apology because you simply made it to 'em is astonishing.
This is the kind of game a cheap uncle buys a kid for Christmas out of the bargain bin giving little thought beyond, “little Timmy likes cars so I’ll buy him this thing.” Sadly, it will only keep kids entertained for as long as it takes them to realise the odds are stacked against them. While some real passion has gone into the transition of some much-loved toys into digital form, the challenge of Hot Wheels Unleashed is just too great for its target audience. Without significant fixes, it will do little more than frustrate all who pick it up.
Give this one a miss unless you’re a huge fan of getting really angry at video games.
Featuring systems that focus on community engagement and competition among friends, there are some clever new ideas that haven’t been seen in games before. Still, Steep falls short where it matters most, offering you more moments of anger than adrenaline. If you have plenty of patience then this might be the game for you, though most will end up pissed off rather than going off-piste.
Sadly Carmageddon: Max Damage was seemingly built just for those that want to re-live the original game, including literally all of its flaws. Had the target audience been expanded to those that like playing games that are fun, it could have been a huge hit.
Splatoon 3 adds nothing of significance to the series, which is quite disappointing considering that it, as a whole, was bursting with originality when it first launched.
Danger Zone 2 isn't quite as much fun as I remember Burnout being.
Only drop coin on this if you're a huge fan of the genre
With 30 levels, too few of them being actual trials and too many being stupid platforming, Trials of the Blood Dragon seems nothing more than an attempt at showing off what a few developers could do after getting drunk and watching 80 action movies and Saturday morning cartoons. The disappointing thing is this could have been so much better by simplifying the concept and making it a DLC map pack for Trials Fusion. Die-hard Trials fans will play this once, but probably never again; that said, they might enjoy it. Die-hard Blood Dragon fans will be unimpressed.
Horizon Call of the Mountain is absolutely beautiful and features some fun moments, but it bears repeating that it in no way feels like an $80 AUD game; it barely feels like a $60 AUD game and should have been included with the PSVR2 without an additional cost. It’s without a doubt a fantastic way to show off what the PSVR2 can do (eye tracking aside as it’s only used in menus and dialogue sequences). When your friends come over to check out your new toy they’ll come to see Horizon Call of the Mountain, but they’ll stay for Gran Turismo 7. While this offers fans a literally alternate perspective into a universe that many really love (myself included) and is a fantastic as a tool to show off the PSVR2, it lacks depth as an actual game. Challenge and balance are overloaded with tedious climbing sequences and not enough of the fun stuff.
While VR definitely makes things better by making the the world feel a little more real, the enemies feel a little larger and adding in the ability to free aim your weapons — all without being too gimmicky — it’s not enough to warrant a purchase of new VR gear if you don’t already have it.
The Zelda devout have already decided to to buy this game and I hope they love it. Everyone else might want to spend some time with the demo first.
Amidst the hype and the vitriolic criticism from keyboard warriors around the world feeling like they’re owed something better, it’s easy to forget that this game — possibly the largest ever made and certainly the most anticipated of the year — was developed by a team of just 15 people (at its biggest). Its visuals are basic, there’s no narrative to speak of and it’s infested with game crashing bugs in its current state (patch coming very soon, we’re told). Its primary focus on resource gathering is repetitive, but discovering a huge deposit of something rare and valuable breaks the repetition to keep you motivated to continue exploring. All things considered, No Man’s Sky is the first game in years to actually justify the use of the word “ambitious”. That’s why I like it.
Mafia III is consistently inconsistent. An engrossing and mature narrative told between repetitive and boring missions, satisfying gun play against moronic AI enemies all taking place in a beautifully designed city that's ruined with shitty lighting effects.
Due to its niche nature, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown won’t be for everyone. You’d really need to love this style of game to get the full benefit of it. That being said, it’s a well crafted addition to the genre and may very well make some some new fans of aviation titles that were otherwise not interested
Mega Man 11 is as challenging, fun and frustrating as every other game in the series in literally every single aspect.
Combat against all the bosses is both challenging and rewarding. There's great variation between all enemies in their look, how they fight and how you need to behave with each
The decision to only release MWR with purchases of the upcoming Infinite Warfare and the apparent intent on never making it available as a stand alone game appears to be a desperate cash grab. This sales model either assumes that every COD 4 fan has been a dedicated franchise devotee for the past nine years which is most certainly not the case, or it hopes that hardcore COD 4 fans will be willing to shell out just to play the remastered version of their favourite game. But let’s face it: nobody in their right mind would spend $129 AUD on a nine year old game with improved visuals… would they?