Nicola Ardron's Reviews
GNOG is a game that defies explanation. It is a weird, abstract puzzle game that has a sense of play and about it, but ultimately leaves you wanting a little more.
The Ringed City DLC is a mixture of things, unfairly difficult in the beginning, it opens up and delivers a thematically fitting end to the series of the whole. Great boss fights as well as a new PvP mechanic elevate it above the previous DLC.
Blackwood Crossing is a surprising release, a game that delicately explores the difficult emotions of grief, guilt and love told through the eyes of two orphaned siblings.
Snake Pass is a unique take on the classic puzzle platformer with a genuinely inventive style of movement that reinvents the genre, but a difficult camera and archaic save system takes some of the shine off.
Loot Rascals is a quirky turn based card strategy game that incorporates rogue-like elements. The off the wall presentation hides a surprisingly deep system to manage, but luck often hampers the best laid plans meaning progression feels limited at times.
LEGO Worlds is a delightful game, full of whimsy with tonnes of things to see and do. The draw of exploration is excellent as is the myriad of items to collect, but frame rate issues and quest bugs slow the gameplay down a bit.
Forma.8 is an utterly gorgeous and affecting take on the familiar 2D Metroidvania style game with some clever puzzles for your plucky little probe to navigate.
Kitty Powers Matchmaker has a wonderful kitsch charm to it, delightfully self-aware and witty. It does start to show its limitations after extended play, but overall it is great fun and pretty much nails the awful dating experience.
A solid sharpshooting experience that knows where its strength lie. The open ended nature of each level, as well as the myriad ways to despatch enemies makes each level interesting, but it is the X-Ray kills that remain the centrepiece of this particular franchise.
Uncanny Valley shows a lot of promise, but the harsh reality of its non-linear narrative structure and reliance on multiple playthroughs to make sense of it all means it is asking too much in the face of the early game's uninspired, repetitive gameplay.
Sabotage is a good introduction to the DLC schedule for Infinite Warfare, with some solid multiplayer maps and a very strong Zombies outing.
Knee Deep has some interesting and fun mechanics and delivers a reasonable mystery. It is just a shame that the quality shown at the beginning doesn’t last until the end.
Dead Effect 2 falls into the "so bad it's good" category of things with a certain B-movie charm to it. Just don't expect a technically polished shooter.
Ronin is potentially a really good game, but repetitive game play as well as a frustrating upgrade system makes it tough to finish to its conclusion.
The final boss fight is challenging and worth the DLC, while the PvP arena will keep fans busy for some time, but ultimately the world of Ariandel is bleakly beautiful if unsatisfying.
Titanfall stands out as an example of how there is still plenty of room for innovation and newness in a crowded genre space. It's superbly executed and incredibly fun to play.
They don't make them like this anymore. Modern Warfare Remastered has received the treatment it deserves and is an incredible boxed extra for Infinite Warfare
Aragami is a superb stealth game with a gorgeous visual design and a protagonist that feels as lithe and graceful as you'd expect a ninja to be.
A Journey's End is a lacklustre ending to Minecraft: Story Mode and further reinforces the idea that the series should have stopped after episode four or five.
Death Star is the best expansion so far for Battlefront, but the way the DLC as a whole is presented only further segregates the player base.