James Berich's Reviews
For Honor feels like both a triumph and a failure in some senses. On one hand, it's an exceedingly genuine melee combat experience that manages to leverage the wild and varied styles of the knights, Vikings and samurai in a comprehensive package. The single player is great, if not terse. The multiplayer well designed. On the other, it's let down by consistently disappointing server and networking issues. These can be fixed in the future, no doubt, but for now, For Honor has some more territory to conquer before it becomes truly great.
Sniper Elite 4 is a vast improvement over Sniper Elite 2 and 3 in terms of scenario design and ambition, but there's just something missing. The team at Rebellion have got the combat down. They've got the sniping mechanics down. They've even nailed the traversal mechanics – whether vertical or horizontal. But there's a distinct lack of fantastical set pieces that stunt Sniper Elite 4 from reaching its true potential. Instead, we have some greatly designed, open missions; but ones that grow repetitive by the time the game ends. Issues with pacing and repetition aside, Sniper Elite 4 is still a competent experience, and one of the more authentic and true-to-life sniping simulators.
While it's easy to sit back and write Nioh off as another Dark Souls clone, it's something very different. Yes, it's slightly less challenging to get into, but it's a result of some incredibly synergistic systems that work so well together to improve and smooth the player experience. Nioh is still a difficult game, mind you, but it's an experience that consistently rewards players for performing well.
Resident Evil 7: biohazard manages to successfully consolidate the exploratory, slower paced, tension filled gameplay of the early games with the modernised visuals and technology of today. A new first person viewpoint will prove controversial with more seasoned veterans but such a change allows Resident Evil 7 to feel fresher than ever before. Make no mistakes, Resident Evil 7 is a victorious progression for the franchise which successfully melds new with old. The weight and harshness that technology like Playstation VR brings to the scares and tension is especially welcome.
After spending some solid time with Eagle Flight it's so, so hard to put into words just how I feel about it. The game itself, as an entire package, is an admirable effort. Eagle Flight obviously started out as a tech demo of sorts but the developers have done a great job of expanding it into a full (albeit, lower priced) experience. Eagle Flight does have its fair share of issues – namely whether it's truly worth the price of entry and whether it'll have longevity.
Regardless of what you think about the quality or effort put into this remaster, the underlying games that inhabit Ezio Collection are still very solid games, with a lot of great content to plough through for a reasonable asking price. It's just a little bit of a shame that these don't have the wow factor that improved models or even 60fps might have brought. Still, an improvement is an improvement, if only slight.
Dishonored 2 is a huge triumph, managing to achieve the lofty goal of outdoing its predecessor in almost every way.
Gears of War 4 represents the next level of classic Gears of War gameplay.
The trio of Dead Rising remasters are much harder to indiscriminately recommend to any players
BioShock: The Collection is an amazing effort. BioShock 1, 2 and Infinite all look their very best and plenty of effort has gone into making each of the games stand up to today’s lofty visual standards.
When I first sat down with ReCore there was one burning question that I wanted to answer. Was it a budget game? Was the $49.95AU price point indicative of the game’s quality? For the most part, I’m inclined to answer no.
ABZÛ is exactly what it appears to be – it's a linear game that encourages players to dive into its deep waters and interact with nature.
Song of the Deep is a very mixed experience but one that should be experienced at least once. On one hand you’ve got a breathtakingly beautiful rendition of the deep sea that progressively gets both more intense and intimidating as you descend into its depths. You’ve got a genuinely loveable protagonist with a great journey to undertake. You’ve even got a large map that’s quite fun to explore.
7 Days To Die has a compelling premise and concept that slowly disappears as players begin to play more and more of it.
Coming right off the back of Resident Evil 6, Resident Evil 5 is an experience that really should not be missed.
When Capcom released Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City I thought they couldn’t put their publishing name to a title any worse. It felt awfully generic, it didn’t play all that great and it liberally reinterpreted Resident Evil in a way that rubbed me the wrong way as a fan.
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter feels about on par with previous games in the series.
Overwatch is, without a doubt, a triumph in almost every aspect. It manages to bring a bright and colourful aesthetic to a genre that has previously been reluctant to do so.
Resident Evil 6 returns to the new generation of consoles with a small range of improvements.
Far Cry Primal feels like a missed opportunity hampered by what we can only assume is it’s budget.