Colm Ahern's Reviews
Man of Medan's story and characters fail to reach the heights of Supermassive's homage to the slasher flick, Until Dawn. The Dark Pictures Anthology isn't off to the greatest of starts.
A lot has gone into changing how the game is played in PES 2018. The more measured approach is wonderful, as is Real Touch+. That's why the parts that need an upgrade stick out more than they have in years.
The opening episode of Guardians of the Galaxy sets up the series for what's to come, capturing the tone of the source material really well with on-point vocal performances and some terrific visual gags.
While A New Frontier's opening two episodes are the best looking Telltale's ever produced, they resemble what we've seen before in story. Things need to change for the rest of the season to thrive, if it can.
Simplicity is what makes Trackmania Turbo so refreshing, and is it's downfall on the longer tracks. Yet, the death-defying jumps and breakneck speed on the shorter efforts are where everything comes together. Hammering the roads while some banging tunes are playing is exhilarating. There's even a button to turn up the music: the weirdness of Trackmania is alive and weel here.
Detroit: Become Human wants to move you. It wants to elicit an emotional response through its story. The thing is, it really doesn't. The flowchart is a nice inclusion and adds some variance, but when the narrative is as cringey and ham-fisted as it is you won't want to play through it multiple times.
Yooka-Laylee would fit right into the late 90s with its vague puzzles, wakka-wakka voices, and confusing levels. Time has moved on since the N64, and while there are a handful of bright spots, this sadly isn't the catalyst for a 3D platformer revival.
While We Happy Few's story contains some genuinely wonderful twists and turns once it gets going, it's dragged down by frustrating survival systems, shoddy combat, and an empty world.
When combat is between you and one other, Darksiders 3 can provide some decent, button-mashy fun, but the real fight is with the baffling world design and some cheap deaths.
Stretching your limbs across the battlefield to stop an impending throw is good fun, but there's absolute anarchy when you throw in an extra body. The mediocre mini-games, and antiquated single-player further block the punch of Arms.
Motion control has its detractors and its advocates, but both parties should be able to see that Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games is not one to fly the proverbial waggle flag. The awkwardness of waving a large GamePad around and unresponsive controls make this one of the less enjoyable party offerings available on the system.
My cranium is red raw from tearing strands of hair from my scalp in frustration and I'm sure plenty of others will be bald within an hour of playing The Castle Doctrine. It's a shame that this is the case because there are some interesting options available to players, but the cutthroat design choices are a step too far.
At the middle point, Game of Thrones is losing its momentum and, except for Gared and elements of Rodrik's story, hasn't shown enough progression to get people excited for what's to come.
Unravel can deliver some picturesque desktop wallpaper, but when in motion, this 2D platformer becomes a frustrating puzzler that expects you to know more than you've been taught.
While the rewards in hidden areas aren't as satisfying as you might expect from a game like this, Gato Roboto's tense, creative boss battles with a talking rodent are an absolute delight.
Granted, the chase sequences are frustrating and the story falls a bit flat, but there's some wonderful attention to detail in Close to the Sun's environments, and tension is present even in the game's calmest moments.
This puzzle-platformer's puzzles and platforming might be merely alright – and the music is a proper irritant – but Pikuniku is full of so much cheer and loveliness elsewhere. It's bursting with character in a story that's equal parts silly and uplifting.
Shooting the bad men and tinkering with your loot in The Division 2 is good enough to keep you coming back to something that's regularly monotonous and lacks any real message.
Gris plays to your aural and optical senses by delivering something exquisite in that area, but lacks a compelling story to prop itself up alongside equivalents.
A pleasant story about two best friends who refuse to be separated by a great evil, My Memory of Us is brought down by some awkward controls, but remains impossibly nice throughout.