Andrew Logue
Overall, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a great sequel that once again demonstrates MachineGames' mastery of combining fun, fast-played gunplay with a serious narrative and complex characters. Is it as good as The New Order? In terms of mechanics and visuals, even better.
If you’re looking for an accessible, light-hearted platformer with music and rhythm-based challenges, LocoRoco 2 is packed full of content and can be played by just about anyone, regardless of skill.
Metro Exodus demands patience and prior knowledge if you’re looking to appreciate every narrative moment, and the control scheme is likely to confound new players, but it’s an essential purchase to fans of the prior games that want to see Artyom’s journey through to the end.
The intriguing narrative, fluid action, responsive controls, and phenomenal presentation all come together to create Supergiant Games’ finest to date.
Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is a massive expansion that, with some expanded mechanics and refined cutscenes, could have been sold as a fully-fledged sequel and I would still have been impressed paying full price.
Make no mistake, Resident Evil 2 is still an excellent survival-horror game that modernises the original in a myriad of intelligent ways, giving new players an incredible first experience and continuously surprising returning players.
If you’re looking for a charming, visually-spectacular, mechanically-satisfying platform-puzzler, that’s exponentially better with friends, Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince offers up tons of content at half the price of a typical big-budget release.
For all my complaints about the mission structure and repetitive semi-randomised maps, I never once stopped playing thanks to excellent gunplay, and fun upgrade system, and just enough narrative to keep me interested. It is always difficult for developers to create decent narrative in these games and the story in Shadow Warrior 2 seems more ambitious than the game can effectively convey.
In summary, Owlboy is a near-perfect retro adventure that doesn’t emulate classic 16-bit titles so much as it gives us what we remember them to be. Sprawling and epic, even in the confines of a 2D plane, full of likeable protagonists, nefarious villains, tough encounters, and an uplifting story that you’ll walk away from satisfied.
Red Dead Redemption 2 offers up an epic narrative in an intricately-detailed open world but questionable designs choices make large parts of the game feel like a chore.
Gameplay is certainly more of the same, wrapped in a new narrative, but it matches the same high standard set by the original.
Blazing Chrome is a must-buy for retro fans. It looks and plays great - albeit with a few frustrating aspects inherent to the genre - and is even more fun, and chaotic, in coop.
Gears Tactics is a great fit for the IP and its gameplay complexity matches – and sometimes surpasses – that of other long-established IPs in the genre.
The music is great and the new voice work, although often campy, keeps the Chosen hovering somewhere between menacing and humorous, providing some much needed levity.
If you’re looking for more Life is Strange, Deck Nine has delivered a fantastic and consistent prequel that is a must-play for fans.
I’m not a huge ‘Souls fan, at least not since bouncing off Dark Souls 2, and I tend to shy away from these games as I get older; however, even though Ashen has some difficulty spikes that remind me of those games, the vibrant world, likeable characters, companion system, and soothing soundtrack all kept me coming back.
Despite a small development team and limited budget, a lot of thought and effort has gone into designing the interwoven narrative and gameplay elements in GreedFall, with nothing feeling underutilised or overdone.
The World to the West was a real surprise for me after Teslagrad. The dark, oppressive fairy-tale world gives way to a more light-hearted adventure story that focuses on the joy of exploration and puzzling, rather than tough platforming and unforgiving boss encounters.
Played back-to-back, the Outlast Trinity collection begins to feel a little stale as the basic gameplay loop barely changes. That said, each title features its own slowly unravelling narrative, intimidating foes, terrifying locations and slowly builds up in intensity towards the conclusion.
Mr. Shifty often feels like a low-violence, puzzle-oriented, super-powered version of Hotline Miami. At its very best, it captures the stop-start flow of the original Hotline Miami — observe, plan, and then engage in a glorious display of speed, skill, and violence.