Matt Gardner's Reviews
Seedy Eye Software might’ve taken over 30 years to right past wrongs and nearly perfect the imperfectable, but Arzette is a triumph: a best-in-class game for a worst-in-class genre, and hopefully the start of a series that will continue to take things to new heights–even if it needs to be shackled to stupidity to achieve it.
I’ve reviewed hundreds of games, and this is the first time I can say with confidence that it’s pretty much impossible to find anything bad to say about COCOON. As such, I won’t manufacture criticism. It’s a must-play experience–a real 10/10, if I gave review scores. Which I never have. Even if I just did.
All these factors, combined with a stunning soundtrack that ranges between Vangelis and Nobuo Uematsu, make After Us a must-play game in 2023, and deserves a place on any game of the year list–not just one restricted to indies. For all those moments of satisfaction and glee, you’ll also feel uncomfortable, sad, and maybe even helpless–but again, maybe that’s the point. Sometimes you have to suffer to do the right thing.
There’s a season pass in the works, so LEGO 2K Drive’s foundations may be built on and refined–and its creators are certainly committed to adding to it and improving it in the coming months–but right now, it’s lacking those all-important LEGO hallmarks. You can’t fault the passion that clearly went into it, but it needs to evolve to hit the highs that many gamers will expect from it.
For all its hidden delights, its strengths shine brightest when you just want to stare into the distance, admiring a beautiful view. When these moments inevitably occur, time stops. There’s no rush. But you will need to carry on, you’ll check your map, and find something else to explore–and you’ll feel rewarded once again.
Broken Age's first act does just about enough to stand alone, though it really wasn't supposed to be this way, and that's clearly evident in a game that's slow to start and ends just as it hits its stride. However, gorgeous visuals, cracking performances, and a wonderfully-written script that manages to perfectly blend the serious and the surreal make Broken Age worth a look at this early stage. But we won't be putting a score on it until the whole thing is in our hands.
Should you by it? Well, to be brutally honest, it's a game that would be perfect as a PlayStation Plus curio, and I'm pretty sure that we'll see it there at some point down the line. I found it to be odd and empty with moments of fleeting magic at first. But the more I stopped analysing it and let myself simply play, the more I began to delight in the little sprites, their little animations, the detail to the worlds, the beautiful music that perfectly compliments the fluidity of movement by the long-mover (I still prefer rainbow worm).
Pro Rugby Manager 2015 is an utter disgrace, a broken shambles, bereft of depth or quality, worth neither your time nor your money. It's frankly insulting that niche audiences continue to be exploited in this manner, and 505 Games should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
For a game that bears the name of a remarkable writer, Wayward Manor ultimately proves rather unremarkable thanks to clunky mechanics, repetitive puzzles, and a story that seems a little too thin.
Bereft of a new-gen equivalent, F1 2014 is a stopgap game thrust into the spotlight that takes last year's version, strips back the Classic content, and adds in this year's cars. With the right setup, you can still get a pretty thrilling ride out of it, but to be honest you're best ignoring this hasty knockoff and investigating next year's effort instead.
Take no note of the name, it's not an RPG, it's a fairly mindless brawler, and a mediocre one at that.
How did it come to this? Knack is basically a risible film tie-in without a film to recommend it.
Bound By Flame wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and its chest, and its legs, borrowing cues from pretty much every ARPG around. Its an earnest attempt by Spiders, as are most of their games, but the elements here feel slapdash and dishevelled. At best, Bound By Flame might offer a spot of B-movie-esque filler while you wait for Dragon Age and The Witcher III. At worst, it's a clunky, hot mess of a game with an over-inflated price and little to offer of any distinction.
I wanted to love this game so very much, and the ideas behind it are innovative and interesting and far too good to deserve a mediocre showing such as this. But sadly that's exactly what Murdered: Soul Suspect is to be honest. Pretty mediocre.
Perhaps the game that best underlines the tenet that bigger isn't always better, No Man's Sky is undoubtedly a technical marvel, but it's also sterile, repetitive, and all too easy to put down.
The Elder Scrolls Online is a brave attempt at combining two seemingly polar opposites, but it ultimately fails to build a continuously compelling world, compromising too much on either side. It's an MMO that can't hold a candle to likes of Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World, and an Elder Scrolls game that can't hope to be as deep and rich in content and solo experience as Morrowind and Skyrim. The allure of an online Tamriel is strong, and when the game's disparate parts align, it really is a bit special, but those moments are too few and far between to recommend for a game with this much of an inflated price point.
The production values are cracking, with outstanding voice work and some great dialogue, not to mention an ending that flips the script nicely and sets up an intriguing sequel. But sadly the first part of Burial at Sea flounders in its attempts at nostalgia, mashing different parts of the Bioshock legacy together in an easy hybrid that lacks the atmosphere of the original game and completely fails to capitalise upon the expansive vision of Infinite. Half-hearted fan-service at best.
Though it presents a strikingly unique aesthetic and a daringly open invitation to the player to piece together a mysterious narrative for themselves, Betrayer is ultimately a bit of a disappointment thanks to uneven pacing, inconsistent mechanics, and a world and story that just aren't particularly interesting. In the end, Betrayer assumes a little too much and works too little for the player's interest, which is a shame because it ultimately makes a rather striking game all too easy to walk away from early on.
Gods Will Be Watching is an interesting experiment -- a game that puts a fresh new spin on PnC conventions and delivers are pretty unique experience. But its lack of narrative impact, its ultimately empty moral decisions, dependence on trial and error, and tendencies towards deliberate frustration rather than challenging fun make it something of a flawed curiosity piece rather than anything else.
Far from pointing the way forwards for the series, Assassin's Creed: Unity is a model of creative indecision and corporate policy -- a corpulent, broken mess that plays neither to its own strengths nor to its fanbase. There are flashes of promise here, moments when everything comes together, and the game's content package is hefty, but ultimately Unity proves to be a mercifully forgettable disappointment.