Gary Alexander
Gary reviews Square Enix & Platinum Games’ third-person action game Nier: Automata [VIDEO DISCUSSION].
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.
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.
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.
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.
I really wanted to like Yooka-Laylee. I don’t. Instead of taking a beloved style of game and updating it for modern times (à la Doom last year), Playtonic essentially created a game that could have been from 1998 and released it in 2017. The result is a mess of poorly implemented game mechanics that the games industry fixed two decades ago.
Drawn To Death is an interesting idea that has been poorly implemented. The art style is fantastic to look at, but it’s at odds with the gameplay and isn’t helped by a lacklustre HUD.
A Rose in the Twilight continues Nippon Ichi’s excellent run of games that seem to exist specifically to torture young girls.
Flinthook sucks you in until you look at your clock and realise it’s 2AM and you’ve been playing far longer than you thought.
There’s an interesting premise at the heart of What Remains of Edith Finch – explore a house and get to know a bunch of characters by invading their personal space and seeing how they died. And the short stories themselves can be interesting, particularly the shifts and changes they bring to the otherwise standard first-person gameplay. But there’s very little attempt made outside of these short stories to actually connect the player with its many subjects. Too often I felt like I was simply going through the motions.
Little Nightmares is an excellent experience wrapped in a fairly frustrating game. The world that Tarsier Studios have constructed is excellent – trading on its dollhouse-like environments, terrifying antagonists and incredible audio to create an incredibly atmospheric and disturbing horror game. But this otherwise great presentation is let down badly by poorly implemented gameplay and a story that feels like it goes nowhere.
Everything is a game that won’t be for everyone. It probably won’t be for most people. At the same time I’d urge everyone to give it a go.
World to the West is a pretty good adventure held back by some fairly annoying flaws.
Crawl is a fairly decent dungeon crawler that’s made a hell of a lot better when played with friends. It suffers from some slightly imprecise controls and an art style that, while great to look at, can make for a confusing cacophony of chaos that can lead to player death. It’s also a riot to play with some friends, with some of the best multiplayer gaming I’ve played so far this year. The only downside to that is that there isn’t any online options.
Cosmic Star Heroine is a fine RPG. What could have been a nostalgic throwback to the golden age of RPG’s is instead a thoughtful and well designed modern take on classic titles.
Black & White Bushido is a game that’s hard to recommend. While its core fighting mechanics are sound, save for the confusion that can arise from its stealth systems and monochromatic presentation, it doesn’t really have a lot to keep you hooked. There’s no denying that a group of friends playing locally can have a good time, but it lacks any sort of staying power in single-player or online.
As a first-person shooter, Farpoint is serviceable. As a true first-person virtual reality shooter it’s a very encouraging starting point. As a proof of concept for Sony’s new aim controller peripheral it’s a revelation.
Injustice 2 is probably the best single-player fighting game you can get right now.
RiME is a beautiful game. There's no denying that its visuals are stunning and the soundtrack is fantastic. The presentation is spot on. Unfortunately the game that lies within this audiovisual marvel is lacking.
[Endless Space 2] builds off the strengths of the 4X genre and what went right the last time, adding enough of its own flavour to gameplay to make it stand out and create an addictive, thoughtful science-fiction adventure.