Dylan Blight's Reviews
Your first six-to-eight hours with Days Gone will be your worst. It’s a slow drag of ploddingly introduced mechanics, weapons and characters that eventually does open up to a much more varied and exciting experience.
Katana ZERO is an ultra-violent, samurai slashing neon-soaked mystery that's best played in one sitting, akin to a binge-worthy anime.
Yoshi’s Crafted World sure doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to adventure platformers like this, but it doesn’t need to when it brings this much joy, charm and cuties to your screen.
Ape Out is a simple premise brought together wonderfully with the procedural nature of its music and level design to truly make you the maestro of your own escape.
A shorter, tighter experience may have been able to use the tedium and slow tone it delivers for a more consistent experience and resonance with the player, but The Stillness of the Wind was too long a chore for me to enjoy enduring.
Crackdown 3 is a mindless collectathon that may tickle the right spot for fans of the franchise or those seeking a game stripped of everything but side-missions; those seeking a Terry Crews simulator, like I was, will be left sorely disappointed.
I like Storm Boy. I'm Australian. I have a semi-attachment to the story from being a kid, so for me personally, this was an experience I was looking forward to diving into and I enjoyed the ride. If anything, it made me want to watch the 70's film again, but this is a comfort food variation of Colin Thiele's story, not a good place to experience it for the first time.
Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game had me engrossed start to finish, even if it's ending was predictable. Unfortunately it is held back by not having a unique story direction or a commitment to more consistent and fulfilling gameplay mechanics. It's undercooked but an easily digestible Cthulhu adventure for fans of the genre. A fun Saturday afternoon in a psychological horror show.
Infliction is better than the majority of games you can find like it, featuring much better writing, but its problems standout frustrating tall. Still, it's hard to not give the one person team of Clinton McCleary at Caustic Reality many props for pulling off what is here basically all by himself, and I look forward to seeing what he does next.
Evasion is fun when you have someone beside you blasting away, communicating, having a laugh. Playing by yourself shows the repetitive nature and structure of the campaign though and that's why is really hard for me to recommend picking Evasion up, unless you know you'll primarily have someone to play the game with.
Astro Bot Rescue Mission is simply, amazing — a pure joy and a wonder that is a must play for all PSVR owners.
It'll take you less than four hours to finish The Midnight Sanctuary and at times it is a struggle to see it through, especially that first chapter, but when it gets into the plot there is something interesting here using Japan's history with Christianity as the backbone of a supernatural thriller.
STONE is a quick two-hour dip into the fair dinkum world of Stone, a bloke with a good heart, but needing a right knock on the noggin as he can be a bit of a drongo. A bit more hard yakka could have pushed STONE into something bigger, but it's still a bit of a larrikin and possibly best enjoyed with a cold one or two.
Life is Strange 2 is a brave choice for DontNod who had a hit with the first season. They could have done much of the same again here but chose to do something very different with the story of Sean & Daniel. I applaud it. Judging from the premiere episode their story is going be an interesting, hard and emotional one in ways I may not be prepared for and yet, I can't wait for the next episode.
Forza Horizon 4 is a stunningly beautiful tour through the UK with a roster of cars that all control and sound unique with superb detail. The season’s system will keep Horizon 4 feeling constantly new and exciting, like a living world that is now populated with real players. This is the racing game to pick up in 2018 and one of the best games of the year.
At its price point, it's well worth it and swinging back into the campaign on a higher difficulty as I have, it'll not only keep you practising your punches for some time, but could be a workout for the foreseeable future. Just make sure you stretch before playing and have water at the ready. Don't get dehydrated kids!
Even if the nostalgia of the objects littered throughout the islands is before your time the emotional resonance of The Gardens Between should work for everyone in some regard. Memories from being younger, simpler times. The ending is bittersweet, but the journey there is every bit rewarding through interesting mechanics and subtle story-telling.
Although it feels like it has released a little too early and you’re buying a work in progress at the moment, Megaquarium is still a lot of fun. Maybe a month from now it’ll be even better as the constant updates are being published to fix issues and follow up on feedback.
I like to refer to my time with Donut County as ‘the time I was held hostage by interesting mechanics and played an asshole racoon.’ Have a garbage day.
I appreciated having Read Only Memories on my Switch to play it as a portable. The pixel art looks great on the screen and you're not losing any detail not playing docked. The INTEGRAL version doesn't add much to separate it from the many other versions you can pick up, but of the portable versions available (Vita, iOS, Android) I'd much prefer it on my Switch and the game is best experienced as a portable book to pick-up as you wish.