Paul Broussard's Reviews
It’s hard to recommend Unholy. Outside of the environmental design, the mechanics don’t do much to scare or otherwise engage the player, the story is flat and uninteresting, and the characters are about as wooden as their animations.
Exoprimal is, as it stands, a dreadfully unfinished experience that I couldn't realistically recommend to anyone.
A mostly-good collectathon with some occasional leaps into greatness that showcase its true potential as a series, but it doesn’t commit enough to these to become truly great.
A feast for the eyes and a famine for everything else.
I appreciate System Shock for laying the groundwork for future immersive titles, but it definitely feels dated now, and the few changes made in the remake are a mixed bag that don’t do enough to fix its problems, while also adding new ones of their own.
The best way I think I can describe The Bunker is that it is an exceptional proof of concept. There's immense potential here, and the first couple of hours or so are genuinely great horror, but the game doesn't have enough tricks up its sleeve to maintain momentum.
Darkest Dungeon II reminds me of Salt and Sacrifice; both sequels to cult classic titles that tried to innovate by mashing up with entirely different genres, both significantly worse off as a result.
Burning Shores flickers between highs and lows constantly, and while there are still enough positives here for me to say it's "good," I come away from it feeling somewhat uncertain about the franchise.
While it doesn’t feel like it quite reaches the heights of Yakuza 0 or 7, it still stands out as another fun romp through an insane story with an entertaining batch of characters.
WHALIEN is a reasonably entertaining puzzle-solving game with tools that have a lot of potential, but it probably won’t tax your head or your fingers.
It’s pretty evident this is the team’s first action title in a while - there are more than a few mistakes on display - but it’s hard not to applaud the ingenuity and sheer fun-factor.
I certainly respect the desire to create something different and the courage to tell a story with challenging themes, but I don’t feel like the game's components ever quite mesh and work together well.
The revamped visuals are, for the most part, breathtaking, and the new control schemes allow just about anyone to enjoy the experience. Even without sequence breaking opportunities it’s still an exceptional game.
A mostly competent Soulslike, but hard to praise beyond that.
The moment-to-moment combat is pretty fun, and the enemy variety is solid, but the lack of weapon swapping and the same old arena do hamper the experience.
As an experience it’s honestly one of the most engaging and engrossing I’ve played this year.
Chop Goblins shouldn’t be dismissed just because it looks cutesy and has a short run time; it’s genuinely fun, endearing, and, for $5, an absolute bargain for one of the most charming and enjoyable hours of the year.
The combat, when it’s clicking, is genuinely fantastic for a more action-driven horror title. But much of what is built around that combat lets it down: the pacing and atmosphere are largely non-existent; the level design, UI, and checkpoint system are very player-unfriendly; and there just aren’t enough set pieces and gameplay diversions to prevent the combat from getting somewhat repetitive by the game’s end.
Ragnarök’s fantastic narrative and enjoyable characters ensure that it isn’t getting out of here without a recommendation, but its gameplay shortcomings mean that it ultimately falls short of some of its loftier ambitions.
The saving grace is that Resident Evil Re:Verse is free so long as you own Resident Evil Village, but does that really count as a point in its favor when this is such a bland, uninteresting offering to begin with?