Has Been Heroes is an ultimately frustrating game. There’s the core of a great idea here with the lane-based strategic combat. Unfortunately developers Frozenbyte have piled on too many complicated systems for it to ever feel fun.
Rain World is so very close to being something special. Its aesthetic is haunting and its dynamic AI creates a world that feels real, as opposed to one that exists purely for you to overcome its challenges. Unfortunately it’s a game undone by poorly implemented controls and a series of strange design decisions that undermine the type of game it wants to be.
The Sexy Brutale is a fantastic adventure game. Its core time looping mechanic works in every way imaginable. Figuring out how to save the wonderfully eccentric party guests from the equally as wonderfully eccentric staff is brilliant.
Old Time Hockey is a great concept poorly executed. It’s marred by some dodgy controls and a series of baffling design decisions. What could have been a neat throwback to old fashioned hockey is instead a massively missed opportunity.
Gary reviews Square Enix & Platinum Games’ third-person action game Nier: Automata [VIDEO DISCUSSION].
Snake Pass is a game that evokes both satisfaction and intense frustration, often simultaneously. Guiding Noddle through the fifteen levels on offer is a great experience, though it is marred by some issues with controls, checkpoints and a wayward, sometimes difficult to control camera. There’s also nothing quite like it.
A demo that should have been free instead costs $6.99 on the Playstation Store. Whether judged as a game or a chance to explore the Ghostbusters firehouse, it’s not worth it.
Everything comes together to create a really great stealth gameplay experience.
It’s not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, and hardcore first-person shooter fans can find a lot to love here, but it can turn into a bit of a slog the further into the game you progress.
Once Firis has passed the exam and the game drops the time limit, Atelier Firis turns into a pretty good JRPG with some deep crafting mechanics but a fairly lacklustre combat system. To get to this point, however, requires a fairly substantial time commitment.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a very monotonous game. Solid gameplay mechanics quickly give way to empty repetition as the game never really varies its core gameplay loop at all during its running time. Regardless of your specific mission objectives, you’ll never break free from the endless cycle of clearing out buildings populated by the same enemies you were fighting ten hours ago.
Horizon: Zero Dawn is an excellent robot hunting game. When you’re in the thick of fighting one of its fantastic robotic opponents it feels like one of the best games you’ve played all year.
The story of Mae Borowski is an effortless blend of growing up while confronting the strange going’s on in the woods. And while it’s an excellent story, it’s the characters and their struggles, triumphs, joy and sadness that I’ll always remember about Night in the Woods.
Gary reviews the excellent action samurai game (and Playstation 4 exclusive) Nioh [VIDEO DISCUSSION]
I truly love the underlying combat mechanics, but what really lets For Honor down is its gear system, which can grant players enormous benefits on the battlefield (especially those willing to spend cash on microtransactions). A subpar matchmaking system in these gear-enabled modes doesn’t help.
Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is an average but frustrating game.
For the time that I spent it with, All The Delicate Duplicates really sucked me into its world, as I scrambled to understand the meaning behind the strange images I was seeing and the almost ominous mood I was experiencing. It’s a unique experience and one I can definitely recommend to anyone looking for something a bit more out of the ordinary.
As you might expect, sniping is the most entertaining way to play the game, whether you’re pulling off a tricky shot, executing a plan to perfection or scoring a troublingly satisfying X-Ray killcam (and seeing a Nazi’s testicles explode in slow motion). Though the game also deserves praise for the huge number of alternative options at your disposal, which plays into the excellent level design that does a great job letting you put these options to use.
Gunmetal Arcadia is a fun platformer. While it’s definitely a throwback to the NES-era in its visuals, soundtrack and gameplay style, it also adds a lot of its own ideas and mechanics to a classic formula.
Tales of Berseria is the best Tales game in a while. Its story, while a bit too slow paced in its first 20-30 hours, is a solid tale of revenge. It breaks away from the more traditional good versus evil yarn that Tales usually aims for, instead telling a darker tale with more Human characters at its core.