Ian Howarth's Reviews
There is a lot on offer from Deathtrap and although much of it feels used, it certainly feels nice to just slip into that safe zone and simply just enjoy what you have in front of you.
I'm afraid that whilst The Deer God was boasted as "a breathtaking 3d pixel art game that will challenge your religion and your platforming skills", the only thing that it really challenged was my patience. It did look pretty nice though.
Ultimately, I believe that the Hatred team simply tried to make something controversial in the hopes that nobody would notice how forgettable their title is.
Overall, Shantae: Risky's Revenge is a nice throwback, even if it's not really that old, with a single glaring problem – being 'Metroidvania' style comes with some responsibilities that this title just couldn't hold up its end of the bargain for.
I had a lot of fun and frustration during my time playing Clandestine and whilst I'm a huge fan of co-op and love to see how it being implemented in refreshing new ways, I still felt like I was playing an early access game, where only the core functionality had been completed, albeit with some pretty strange and often hilarious bugs, such as taking guards out through walls and the most randomly broken cutscenes I've ever seen.
It's unfortunate to see something new explored but not working out and becoming the 'simple but addicting' gameplay I assume it was meant to be.
Nevertheless I have to give BetaDwarf props for trying something different here by mixing up an original blend of genres and for creating something innovative. And although I’m afraid I’m going to have to recommend the original Forced over Showdown any day, I really hope that this team keeps striving to create new and interesting concepts because that is sadly something pretty hard to come by nowadays.
It's a great reboot/re-release. Maybe one of the best, but with a new story that doesn't focus on our heroes and the solidifying of their bond as partners I'm sure that newcomers to the series will only be staying for the fantastic gameplay, but quickly forgetting about the franchise once they put it down.
In all, it was a decent attempt at a new concept but didn’t quite ever make it further than that.
With nothing that stands out too much in the sound or art department besides, for some reason, making me feel nostalgic for Wild 9 on the original Playstation, what we have here is a fun game that can be mastered and beaten relatively quickly.
As mentioned above the game is only about 3 hours long and unless you want to get an S rank on all 9 stages on all difficulties there’s really no reason to replay it at all.
With the lack of tight controls, an honest challenge and the addition of a generic plot and characters we're left with a totally average action platforming game that promised the world.
SEUM delivers a good amount of entertainment, frustration, and the perfect bite-sized trials to hit, not just the ‘one more try’ feeling, but instead the ‘damn I was close and I won’t stop before beating this thing’.
In all, the expansion does exactly what you’d expect from a cheap or perhaps even free update but unfortunately this one currently comes at half the price of the original FORCED SHOWDOWN and I’m afraid I simply can’t recommend it at that price.
With lacklustre multiplayer and a simplified single-player that timidly asks for only basic platforming skills, completion of race challenges that provide plenty of time even after a few screw-ups, and battles that allow unlimited lives with no time limit or enemy respawns, Unbox is definitely not something that should be played if looking for a challenge.
It puts fun above all else and I loved it.
In all, Lethal VR isn’t an experience that will change your life like some VR games claim to do but it’s so easy to get lost in as it blurs the lines of reality, whilst being extremely entertaining.
Until we do get that next genre-defining horror gem, Yomawari is a nice distraction that will hopefully be worked on to bring us something even more sinister and satisfying in the future.
In retrospect I believe a friend put it best – 'it's a flawed masterpiece' he said and I truly believe that.
So the gameplay presents this strange oxymoron of being pretty easy, but still unfairly difficult because of the random element, which is never a nice way to add a challenge, but maybe that's the message all along – life isn't fair.