Rhys Thom
Time Recoil is short and precise. It’s an action packed romp utilising a much loved bullet time mechanic that creates a stylish persona for a rather bland looking game. Although stages don’t differ much from one another you won’t be sticking around in them long enough to care all that much. In essence, Time Recoil is a “burner game” as I like to put it. You can pick it up easily and have fun, it does the job it says it does. But once you’ve finished it -- which won't take long-- you’ll be discarding it as fast you got it.
From Software try to right their wrongs in this next gen port of Dark Souls 2 but fail to meaningfully address the issues that many players had with Dark Souls 2.
Albedo is a love letter to the sci-fi b-movies of years gone by, warts and all. With complex puzzles and a great aesthetic there are also some genuinely awful combat mechanics and confusing user interfaces that really put a dampener on the experience.
Even the best soundtrack can't save the frustratingly fidgety Spectra from its disappointing lack of leaderboards and overly sensitive controls.
As far as 2D arena bralwers go, Extreme Exorcism will never live up to Towerfall. Without any meaningful variety the experiences turns staler than a month old loaf of bread.
Even though The Town of Light fails at any sense of creating a compelling gameplay experience, it does do a fantastic job of illustrating the difficulties individuals face with metal health problems, even if it does focus on the past and how such cases were handle.
The Dwarves is a game that takes time to get to grips with and much longer to master. There will be plenty of game over screens for all players of all skill types and will ultimately have players fall back on the same strategies over and over again, until they succeed. If it doesn't work the first time then try, and try, and try, and try...
earth's Dawn is a poor man's Odin Sphere, but a decade too late. Crafting and upgrading might help elevate spirits throughout your playthrough, but the combat and execution prevents Earth's Dawn from being anything special.
Outbreak's outward appearance of a survival horror game is inadvertently inaccurate. The traditional tropes are there, but the conventional style of gameplay that we associate with survival horror has been tampered with. Outbreak requires you to build your “perfect run” strategy for each level rather than taking it slow and steady. This isn't what I expected, and isn't all that bad, but delivers a completely different style of gameplay than initial impressions would have you believe.
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus is a mixed bag of ideas that could work well but somehow don’t. I felt forced to sit behind cover for large sections of the game instead indulging in gun toting, dual-wielding promises. And even when I successfully managed to reach cover, the slightest movement would alert those around me and compromise any semblance of a stealthy approach. I was stuck in a parasitic loop that left me pining for the days of Wolfenstein 3D or even Wolfenstein: The New Order.
Volition has essentially created their own open world hero shooter in the universe of Saints Row. Taking staple elements that are becoming increasingly popular with each passing day; Hero Characters, Loot Boxes, and Open Worlds. Splicing popular elements from other games has previously worked Volition's favour, but the lack of mission diversity, other than bosses, holds AoM back more than I’d have liked it to. The small world to explore meant things got boring and repetitive. Although, AoM isn’t so long that it becomes a total burden. If you were a fan of Saints Row then Agents of Mayhem could go either way for you, but there are nice nods to the combined universe. But, it can also be lighthearted fun and the humour is on point, as expected from Volition.
Andromeda seems to miss the point on what made the Mass Effect games great. Marred by constant bugs and framerate issues, you'll be hard pressed to find anything that will keep you in for the long haul.
Cast of the Seven Godsends is a flat attempt at bringing the retro era of arcade games back to life, with a poor artstyle and shoddy visuals it's almost too bad to look at. The only saving grace is its gameplay design. Feeling just like Ghost N’ Goblins did back on the NES, Cast of the Seven Godsends does well in its attempt to mimic the combat and difficulty of a bygone era.
DreamBreak had the potential to be a lot more than it currently is. However, Aist design choices for mixing in rather quirky mini games that feel oddly out of place with the main game and with DreamBreak’s main portion of gameplay feeling heavily underwhelming, puzzles too obvious and the story feeling kind of shoehorned, it's hard to give it a thumbs up.
If you are someone who bathes in the next generation of gaming and is anticipating the next big release, then you won't find anything to whet your appetite here. It's about time we let history, be history.
Prompto’s outing is underwhelming at best, with the gameplay being subpar to anything that has come before it, the open world being nothing more than a blank canvas that you can't really do much with, and sidequests being rather redundant in the scope. Its only saving grace is Prompto’s continued character development from a weeping man-child to someone more mature and collected, ready to face the world ahead of him.
I struggle to find much positive about Zenith, it's like a movie with a great script acted out by children on the worst stage possible.
If there was a little more time spent with developing the overall story and much more time spent creating visually desirable environments, I would heartily recommend Sylvio. However as it stands, I’d steer clear. You’d have a better time recording your own ghostly sounds in your basement than playing Sylvio.
Outcast: Second Contact looks like a completely new game. And that’s its problem. Outcast: Second Contact only has re-texturing to its advantage, with mechanics and audio left untouched. Its glossy coat promising more than it had. A few tweaks to the audio presentation and how Slade handles could’ve gone a long way to bettering the experience. Those who have dabbled with Outcast in the past may find naught but nostalgic memories to power them through, other than that, there's nothing to be had here. This is re-texturing at its finest, but it’s not a remaster.
Krinkle Krusher is a bad game, in fact it's probably best to avoid it entirely. From the outside it wields the cartoonishly charming aesthetic of Cut the Rope, but a combination of painstaking difficulty spikes and poor upgrade system ensure that fire was there is quickly snuffed out.