After playing Adios I felt like I did when I first saw No country for old men, and I can't imagine a greater compliment. Graphics are definitely not its strongest suit, but they do a decent job at supporting Adios' touching story, that shines thanks to its fantastic voice acting. A couple simple minigames add a little variety to this walking simulator. All in all, Adios lasts a little more than an hour, but it's an hour that is totally worth experiencing.
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Cyanide & Happiness: Freakpocalypse is a game made for C&H's fans, rather than point&click lovers, and it's okay. The game's mechanics act as a stimulus, prompting the player to talk to all the characters and examine every single part of the setting, enjoying the surreal dialogues and absurd descriptions that dot the game. I don't know if everybody can appreciate it, but if you like dark humor and you're not afraid of BDSM teachers, bullies and delusional weirdos, this is a point&click adventure that may fit your lovely taste.
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Surviving, nowadays, is hard. It's DAMN hard. So it's good to find a survival game like The Wild Eight that does not enjoy punishing the player without reason. I still don't know if this softer approach is an attempt to offset some design issues (like the combat, or the clunky inventory) or if it was meant to be like this since the beginning. Anyway, The Wild Wight feels like a survival game approachable even by players that usually don't like survival games so much, and at the end of the day this feels like good news.
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When a new idea arises in a genre where recycling is the new normal, it's always good news: and this is the case with Gods Will Fall, who reminds us that challenging the gods is quite the gamble. Unfortunately, even if the idea is clever enough to be appreciable even when it causes anger, it does not appear to be supported by an equally valid gameplay. The boss fights with the giant gods are quite entertaining to play, but the tons of repetitive battles against uninteresting enemies that you have to face to get there feel way less intriguing.
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Olija is more than just the sum of its parts. Its action-platform-with-a-bit-of-metrodavania formula is nothing new, like its art style or the mechanics made available by the mystic harpoon. But when every single part works in conjunction with the others, Olija becomes a super rewarding game, where puzzles make you feel smart and fights make you feel strong: not every game needs to be super difficult.
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Unto The End is able to build an entire universe using almost no words. Every gameplay element is part of its narrative of a wild, brutal and unfair world. Sadly, its combat system feels (and probably is) unfair, making the entire experience sometime unbearable.
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What a surprise Call of the Sea was! Out of the Blue's debut title shows off its own well-defined personality through a very accurate artistic direction and attention to details. All puzzles have their own logic and the idea of proposing them in blocks, separating the adventure into sealed chapters, helps to focus attention on a limited number of elements. With its crazy atmosphere and an eight-hours duration, which prevents any kind of fatigue, Call of the Sea is a highly recommended game for adventure's (and Lovecraft's) lovers.
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Ringfit Boxing 2 is a strange mix between WiiFt and Just Dance, but it works. Since you can't get out a lot nowadays, if you like training having a fitness app you can use and enjoy everywhere may be a good idea. Motion detection is quite accurate and the daily training program has a good variety of exercises. It won't last forever, but it should do its job until the lockdown ends.
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Chronos: Before the Ashes arrives too late to the party. Years ago, the main character's aging mechanic would have been enough to grant it attention and praise. Today, it's barely a spark of light in a technically dated game. The fact that the controls aren't terribly responsive and the narrative is a bit confused don't help either. Souls-addicted players might find its ten hours of length an enjoyable diversion, but that's about it.
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In a different year, Airplane Mode would be a nothing more than a nice joke, a strange experiment forgotten in a couple of days. In this strange 2020, AMC's first game is instead a sort of relief from the lockdown we are living in. If you miss being stuck in an uncomfortable chair, bored to death for hours, this is the game for you.
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Chicken Police: Paint It Red proves you can creat a smart, original game even by putting together pieces of 40's noir movies with old point&click adventures and painting it all in cool B&W visual style. The smart move is adding animals to the equation: grumpy roosters and sexy cats lead to sharp dialogues and funny wordplays, while at the same time showing what is wrong in human nature. The plot may not be the most original, but Chicken Police is definitely worth playing.
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The Signifier is an ambitious game that is also aware of its limits. Unfortunately, that is not enough to elevate it among the greats. It offers a great, alienating and at times disturbing atmosphere, but its strongest suit is tackling issues that force the player out of his comfort zone. Unfortunately, mechanics are not as strong as the atmosphere, which makes the short duration (about six hours) a good choice. The ending is a bit fuzzy, however – and probably a setup for a sequel.
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Don't trust art of rally. Even if it looks like a cute, tiny, aesthetic arcade racing game, it is actually a love tribute to the history of rally, from a rally lover to rally lovers all over the world. Underneath his neat visual style and his top-down visuals lies a great rally sim, stripped of every needless detail and still playable by any kind of gamer thanks to a vast array of camera and difficulty options.
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A great idea and a lot, a lot, a lot of repetitiveness. The change in style and setting could bring a beneficial breath of fresh air to the WWE wrestling produced by 2K, instead the game made by Saber was lost due to an excessive trivialization of the fighting styles accompanied by a system of microtransactions quite invasive.
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On paper the idea of turning this edition of PES into a mere update is a good idea. Football blew up, the two seasons almost piled up and the pandemic stopped development for too many months. It is better to focus on the next edition, provided that at least the minimum trade union commitment is devoted to this package, which has not happened. The absence of a partial update of roses and teams at the time of launch is unacceptable, as is the ugliness of the inter and Milan uniforms, although what PES 21 proposes always remains the best kick on the square (IMHO, eh, I do not want to be beaten by FIFA supporters).
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Marvel's Avengers is a strange and somehow unexpected hybrid. Considered on its own, the campaign is an excellent action adventure, able to capture the spirit of Marvel characters both in battle and in everyday demeanor with an enthusiastic cinematic approach. The forced mashup with a Destiny-like multiplayer, however, does not benefit the game as a whole: online features are just weak, to the point they partially water down the singleplayer campaign.
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Rainswept might be the first game to learn from Kentucky Route Zero not only aestethically, but also in terms of direction. All things considered, it tells a simple story, but it does so in a way that shows remarkable sensitivity, a talent for writing, and above all a very uncommon attention to the overall direction of scenes. It may not be as revolutionary as its source of inspiration, but it certainly has something to say.
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Playing Destroy All Humans! is like watching an old alien movie in a summer drive-in. The movie may not be a masterpiece, but atmosphere and context play a fundamental role in enjoying the experience. So the not particularly clever mission design and the not-so-inspired mechanics feel a little less annoying when you are playing a game that makes you laugh, does not take itself seriously and does not require a month of vacation to be finished.
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The only thing more difficult than making a revolution is to re-make a revolution. SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE is still a fun shooter, based on innovative and intriguing ideas, but no longer as effective as they had been in 2016. The roguelite approach certainly gives the game a more conspicuous length, but on the other hand ends up watering down at least part of the mechanics, making the overall experience less incisive than that of the original chapter. After all, as SUPERHOT has always taught, reality is all about perception.
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The Hand of Glory overflows with ideas. Not all of them are spot on, but that's a risk you have to take when you want to do something that goes a little out of the classic schemes. The first impact is alienating because everything is not very homogeneous, from the graphics to the continuous change of register in the narration, but in the long run this strange alchemical formula works, thanks to a plot that turns towards decidedly unexpected territories and leaves the player with a giant cliffhanger, raising the hype for the second part of the game.
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