The moments of quiet crafting and contemplation in Isle of Spirits is what this game does well. The core loop of collecting a small pool of resources and putting what you can towards a unified goal encourages a chilled out, relaxed experience. Unfortunately that’s often at odds with the core of the game which is filled with cheap perma-death dangers and trial-and-error repetition.
Warborn is a stylish, smartly designed and content packed sci-fi strategy game. The 30~ hour campaign tells a fun narrative, despite a rocky start, that tests the player to overcome a decent variety of foes and puzzle like missions. With a tactical depth that’s immediately clear but surprisingly deep, it’s a joy to play both on and offline. A few niggles aside that could be fixed post release, Warborn is one of the better strategy games you’ll play this year.
A bopping 8-bit soundtrack and an interesting variety in game play-altering hats are the main positives from Many Faces, a retro shooter that’s otherwise short on content and game modes. If you’re hankering for a game that looks like it comes from the late 80’s/early 90’s and can keep you busy for an hour for a few pounds Sterling, that’s what you’ll get here. It is sorely missing multiplayer, leader boards and game modes that could really elevate it to bigger and better things.
When Potata: Fairy Flower is doing what it does best – tense platforming among open, branching levels loaded with danger – it’s excellent. Sure, it can be punishing at times but it has been quite some time since a game made my palms as sweaty as this game did at times. For that, it has to be commended. It’s a shame these moments are offset by meandering, sometimes nonsensical quests coupled with reams of text to read, some of which are confusing, and puzzles which grind the game to a halt. As a melting pot of ideas, a few too many counter-intuitive mechanics rose to the top in Potata: Fairy Flower which wow’s you with its visuals one moment then puts you to sleep with an unnecessary and cumbersome conversation the next.
A Fold Apart ends before it manages to make the most of its genuinely unique puzzle mechanics. It feels like there should have been another chapter to the game, really diving into the ingenious mesh of puzzle elements that too often require little more than a few seconds of trial and error to solve. The story A Fold Apart tells is a powerful one, unfortunately undercut by the way it is delivered at times but a beautiful piano soundtrack and art style that’s deeper than it first appears helps it stick the landing.
Fly Punch Boom is a refined, fun multiplayer experience with a simply competent single player mode as a sweetener. The high flying action can be a little hard to make out when played on the Switch in handheld mode and is best played on a TV. The art style is as if the Cartoon Network artists sketched out a fever dream, the soundtrack is suitably pumped up and it’s topped off by game play that feels like it has been honed into its funniest form.
Clocking in at just under 3 hours for a single play through, Gunman Clive HD Collection is a short yet charming experience on PS4. For the first game, the length isn’t so much a detriment because the game flows very quickly and is constantly fresh and fun. The remastered sequel is a far less enjoyable experience, doubling its length but containing some truly irritating or confusing sections.
Concept Destruction is instantly accessible a neat take on the Destruction Derby set on table tops with cardboard cars. There’s some odd rules that can cause a headache and there’s not a lot of content here. After a few hours, you’ll have seen everything the game has under the hood.
Saints Row: The Third Remastered takes a 9 year old game that needed a spruce up, shines it up real nice and blasts it in your face on modern day consoles. The visual improvements here work really well even at 30 frames per second, bringing the game close to today's high standards, but there’s still some aspects of the game that betray its age, namely the NPC AI.
Dark Nights with Poe and Munro is more of what D’Avekki does well – weird, cheeky, eldritch FMV games that have snappy dialogue and a penchant for the lovecraftian darker side of entertainment. If you enjoyed Shapeshifting Detective or The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker, you’ll enjoy what this game does too.
Troubleshooter is ugly, mechanically shallow, stylistically mundane and lacks any kind of innovation. Without a framing or story to give it meaning, it looks like a hodgepodge of assets thrown together with some barely working systems and mechanics built around them. The design flaws are numerous, the soundtrack irritating and it is quite frankly the worst game I’ve played in 2020.
I’m sure those who loved The Wonderful 101 the first time around will get a kick out of playing this game again on modern day consoles with nicer visuals. For those that hadn’t experienced it before though, this remaster feels like an artifact from a bygone age that couldn’t adapt to a new set of input’s without the Wii U controller. The combat and concept are still sound 7 years on. Everything else needed to be reworked or tweaked further.
The small hitches and spotty audio don’t spoil what is an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable narrative. The diverse cast of characters, showing more inclusivity than any other romance visual novel on the PS4, is certainly welcome. Arcade Spirit is tightly written, with only a hand full of lulls, but plenty of heart and a tonne of quirk. While it’s not going to be challenging the greats in the visual novel genre, It’ll surely raise a smile or 10 on your face.
John Wick Hex isn’t your traditional movie tie-in game. Whereas so many others take a franchise and shoe horn it into a genre, Bithell Games have taken John Wick under a microscope, examined its DNA and gamified the essence of it. It’s an ingenious take on what it means to be the Baba Yaga, an efficient killing machine that’s as human as the next guy but fights like an assassin savant.
If you’re a veteran of Solomon’s Key and are desperate for more, Ghost Sweeper will provide you with what feels like the levels from the 1980’s classic that didn’t make the cut. The mechanics and enemy types have been recreated with a spit shine for modern TV’s and having a second playable character is a nice touch. Compared to modern day puzzle platformers though, Ghost Sweeper feels like a relic from the past that needed more of a refresh that simply updated visuals.
Non-violent yet regularly thrilling, it has a surprisingly powerful story that takes a little too long to draw you in, but eventually pays off. The vast majority of the puzzles, mostly based on scouring the environment for clues and thinking outside of the box, are well designed to offer just enough of a challenge without feeling over complex.
The Inner Friend is a short but sweet experience that will give back as much as you put into it. You’ve got to read between the lines with this game and if you like your narratives to have a clear structure, you’ll likely bounce right off this. If you like a game to challenge you, to make you think and maybe, just maybe, make you feel something, then The Inner Friend is certainly worth a look. Some sticky platforming sections aside, it’s a thrilling and occasionally chilling game that’s truly artistic in its vision.
Ancient Enemy is a chilled out take on Solitaire underneath a RPG card battler. It’s not the longest of games, the narrative is a little rote and if you really dig into the mechanics early on, you can find combinations of attacks and special abilities that make the game a touch too early. That being said, it looks fantastic, sets a brooding tone through its music and writing and, as card battlers go, is really quite enjoyable to play.
Super Toy Cars 2 is one of the worst examples of this genre I’ve played in the past few years (surprisingly not the worst). The visuals, much improved over its predecessor and a decent soundtrack are its only saving graces.
MotoGP 20 is a game developed for its existing fans and the lack of any kind of tutorial is testament to that. This game isn’t trying to win over anyone new (or, if it is, isn’t going to do a good job with it). Instead, this is a cracking racing sim that’s a celebration of the MotoGP heroes through the Historic Mode and a gaze into a bizzaro alternative universe where the GP’s actually went ahead this year. It looks great, handles even better and once you’ve got used to its particular idiosyncrasies, it’s a whole lot of fun to play.