Underworld Ascendant misses the mark with almost every shot. Even when freed from the expectations its historical baggage brings, it is a clear failure.
Revisiting Colossal Cave is a peculiar, uncanny experience. I understand Roberta Williams’ desire to bring it back to life, even if I’m not convinced the format she’s chosen to present it in does justice to the original’s pioneering spirit or the grip it managed to hold on the imaginations of those who played it. But perhaps that was always an impossible task.
Pupperazzi struggles to go beyond the obvious premise suggested by its witty name. Other than photographing a lot of dogs – so many, many dogs – there’s almost nothing else to do. While it remains charming and silly throughout, you’re not able to form any sort of lasting bond with any of these dogs. Your interactions with them are too fleeting, too inconsequential. That cute little pug I found snoozing under the picnic table doesn’t have a name, and she’ll be gone the next time I drop by. I can send you a photo of her I took, I suppose, but we both know you’re just going to delete it.
Vampire The Masquerade: Swansong is a dialogue-driven RPG that stakes everything on writing that isn't up to the task.
Stonefly is too weighed down by unwieldy combat and grind to get off the ground.
Nuts is a short hike through mostly uninspiring terrain.
Balan Wonderworld is an occasionally inspired, often unimaginative platformer lost to time.
Blacksad: Under the Skin is a decent detect-'em-up that lacks a bit of noir style.
Pathologic 2 offers a hauntingly bleak tale, then does its best to stop you from experiencing it.
Imperator: Rome is grand strategy on a modest scale.
Call of Cthulhu is a mostly competent, occasionally chilling adventure ruined by unspeakable horrors.
There’s a kind of scrappy, desperate feeling to a firefight in Jagged Alliance 3. Hits to the arms reduce accuracy, and damage to the legs impedes movement. Cover can be destroyed. Losing line-of-sight allows your merc to re-enter Sneak Mode and return to surprise the enemy. Saving a couple of AP to drop into a prone position at the end of a turn can be the difference between seeing the next turn or bleeding out. Yet, despite all this tactical granularity, the successful play is often a matter of running around the cover the enemy is hiding behind and shooting them in the back. Assuming you don’t miss, of course.
Miasma Chronicles again demonstrates The Bearded Ladies know how to design tactically interesting combat scenarios. Yet in its clumsy attempts at world-building, it does little to refute the idea that Mutant Year Zero was something of a fluke.
If Silt has anything to say beyond ‘You might dig this moody atmosphere’ then it was lost on me. Some of its scenes, however, will stay with me for a long time to come.
Creative Assembly's Total War: Warhammer 3 is a spectacular fantasy battle simulator with a flawed campaign.
The Good Life is a charmingly silly RPG with a little too much daily grind.
Humankind is a flawed but fascinating attempt to reinvent the Civilization-style 4X strategy game.
Pendragon is a fascinating but flawed experiment in procedural narrative.
Corruption 2029 is a mechanically proficient but disappointingly hollow take on the XCOM genre.
Mindseize is a solid metroidvania that lacks spark and memorable characters.