Occasionally the art direction of a game is so striking, so inspired, and so beautiful one cannot help but be awed while playing. Hob, the newest adventure from Runic Games, embraces this notion and around every corner is a new canvas for the player to marvel. But does the rest of the game live up to the stunning art? Let’s dive in.
Kyle and Donnie sit down to chat about Naughty Dogs latest release: Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Does it meet the usual Naughty Dog bar of quality? How is it to play Uncharted with Nathan Drake? Is this really a stand-alone game? All this and much, much more!
Caroline, Kyle, and Donnie take a super deep dive on the Nintendo Switch’s latest game, Splatoon 2. Listen in and find out everything you need to know regarding all the good, and bad, the Switch’s latest splatterfest has to offer!
Physics-based puzzle games are a tough nut to crack. Make the game too hard and the player leaves the game frustrated, never to return to the thumb contorting nightmare they just experienced. Make the game too easy and the player leaves disappointed, thinking about the untapped potential of the game they just played. Human: Fall Flat attempts to balance this difficulty teeter-totter by keeping the mechanics simple (all you can do is grab things and jump) but increasing the complexity of the situation you need to apply the mechanics in. While there is the occasional stumble, Human: Fall Flat manages to stay on its feet to the end.
I am not sure when it happened, but at some point, it seems “walking simulator” became a pejorative. As a result, you do not have to look far to find a message board or discussion about renaming the genre to something more representative of what happens in the game: First-Person Experience/Exploration, Interactive Story Adventure, First Person Narrative, and the list goes on and on. It’s accurate you do more than walk in these games, but I do not mind calling the walking simulators…because I tend to like the genre. I enjoyed Firewatch, and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and because of my experience with The Unfinished Swan finding out the folks at Giant Sparrow were making a walking sim had me intrigued. That interest was paid back multiple times over.
Robinson: The Journey does some things well (graphics, environment, scanning of animals, environmental storytelling) but the actual act of playing the game can sometimes be frustrating.