Altogether, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake feels like it’s exactly in line with what the cartoon has become. The humour isn’t quite what it used to be, the characters are flanderisations of their original counterparts, and the plot is just too weird that it probably won’t appeal to older fans. But the children will love it.
With hardly any other true zombie survival simulations on the market, Undead Labs present a competent horror game. It's rough around the edges, with many bugs and features that feel lacklustre, and a multiplayer that doesn't fully deliver on its promise, but it's still a fun ride with many other improvements over the original. For all of its faults, it's an adventure you can rely on if you were a fan of the first.
Amnesia: The Bunker has all these little pieces that work well, but doesn’t fully deliver on its main hook. Fans of the series may be set up for a No Man’s Land of disappointment, where just a few tweaks here and there might make it a much more enjoyable experience. With it also launching on Xbox Game Pass, that might be the best place for it to gain an audience.
Payday 3’s high-octane action and extravagant heists make it another iconic entry into the heist shooter franchise, but it is ultimately held back by a lackluster user interface, matchmaking issues, and online DRM. While these problems can be addressed in later patches — as Starbreeze proved with its post-launch support for Payday 2, the game ends up feeling a little half-baked in its current state.
As a fan of FPS games and a casual fan of the CoD franchise, it pains me to say Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is one of my most disliked entries in the series. The campaign is a huge step down from its original namesake, and the multiplayer has disappointed me on many levels. I know Activision loves to get a slice of the CoD pie every single year, but I still think we’d be better off with fewer titles, bigger innovations.
As much as I love the Fatal Frame series, I’m not at all hopeful for the future of the series if the publisher thinks this title will renew any interest in it. It’s cumbersome, unfocused and simply not fun to play. Sorry Koei Tecmo; I really love the original trilogy, can we bring them back instead please?
Despite hitting a lot of the same notes, Milanoir is not the Hotline Miami successor many were expecting. The game has a lot of style, enough for its 6-8 hour campaign to keep you engaged, but it is hidden underneath a layer of extreme frustration brought to light by its technical issues and extreme difficulty curve.
For an hour-long experience, the main thing I took away from The Search were cheap puzzle mechanics and quotes by American lecturer Joseph Campbell. If the game's main themes were not as openly sermonising, then I could see the narrative being less tedious and players would get more out of it. But sadly, the extent of the story would have been much better suited as an essay, short film, or poem.
Black Mirror has potential to be a decent horror puzzle adventure, but its technical limitations and pacing issues prevents that from ever becoming apparent. Its £25 entry fee is steep for the short experience you'll be getting, and the end product feels like a shadow of its former self.
Despite providing the foundations of an interesting multiplayer experience, Earthfall massively holds back on its delivery as a Left 4 Dead successor. It instead sits on a shelf amongst other co-operative horde shooters, unable to stand out as anything spectacular or bring anything new to the table.
The PC market is already over-saturated with zombie shooters, and Crimson Earth doesn't bring anything new to the table. With enough bugs, odd design choices and crashes to fill a book, you'd be better off sticking to richer shooters such as Killing Floor or Nation Red. Even for the £2.79 price tag, this is really hard to recommend.