A friendly bullet-hell shooter with an innovative idea
If you’re a fan of quick, matchmade hero shooters and long for a spiritual successor to Evolve, then maybe Vicious Circle is for you. For most gamers however, I probably wouldn’t recommend this game. At least not right now.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with All-Star Fruit Racing. I'll admit, it initially gave me a bad impression. The combination of a 50-second long initial loading time (I timed it!), a music-less and boring tutorial, and the awkward inane witch's laugh that persists throughout a race while I'm playing all led me to a preconceived idea about this game. The more I discovered, like how the creepy laugh was apparently my car horn and how I could customize it to sound more like a real horn, all led me on a journey through a magical Fruit-kingdom of fun kart-racing goodness. Unfortunately, the unintuitive U.I. and overall poor polish of the game detract from an otherwise delightful experience. Races felt too unfair one moment, and ridiculously too easy the next.
he Nintendo Switch doesn’t allow for too many racing games to shine with the well-regarded Mario Kart 8 Deluxe hogging the spotlight. But Gear.Club Unlimited is stealing the limelight this holiday season with its racing sim action, RPG-lite upgrade system and beautifully rendered licensed cars. Although it’s not a true racing sim, this is still the best racing game available on the Nintendo Switch to date.
Gran Turismo Sport is the beginning of a new era for the titular PlayStation racing franchise, but some aspects should have been tuned further if they wanted to remain competitive. Unnecessarily convoluted game modes, a pointless photo mode, always-online connectivity, and terrible rosters of tracks and cars bog down an otherwise fun and immersive driving experience. Although this is easily one of the best feeling and best sounding racing games on PlayStation 4, other racing games are just more fun. And as a long-time fan of this series, that is the most heartbreaking of all.
This is the best Forza Motorsports game yet and, dare I say, the best racing game all year. From the gorgeous graphics, dynamic weather, and largest roster of cars to date; this is the ultimate in racing simulation and I can’t wait to experience this game on the upcoming Xbox One X to see it all in glorious 4K.
I enjoyed my time playing Rule with an Iron Fish and it was a refreshingly relaxing game to just mindlessly click and see little stars splayed across the screen with big hit streak combos. However, the frustrating RNG mechanics tied to progression greatly overshadow the cutesy art direction and witty banter between the different characters. As for arcade fishing games, this one is enjoyable; but, I’d recommend just buying it on mobile rather than paying more for it on PC.
For those new to the XCOM series, I would definitely recommend including War of the Chosen with your first play through of XCOM 2 as it deepens the total experience and breaks up any monotony that was in the vanilla version. I have about another 30 hours until I manage to beat the expansion, but I know that when I do I’ll immediately start up a new game to experience it all over again.