Weird West has a great set of gameplay mechanics that don’t always deliver the best experience. The five-character stories have great moments, although the side-quests are often more engaging. You can take down an important enemy in three ways or more, but the chaotic aftermath might be impossible to handle. Using all the money obtained from a job to replace bullets and medicine is not a way to make progress.
Beholder 3 has a few good ideas that fail to shine through the limited and repetitive mechanics. Some conversations, especially some with family members, elicit emotion and create genuine dilemmas. But I never was interested in the tenants, their problems, or my co-workers, and always played Frank as a survivor who can’t and won’t try to make the world a better place.
35mm tries hard to be more than just a walking simulator. It stumbles in this endeavor and forgets that a good walking simulator can still be a pretty entertaining experience. The game falls short of the experience offered by popular titles in the same genre like Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture or What Remains of Edith Finch.
The Ascent is far from perfect. It has so many issues that normally I would not give it a second look. Despite all the issues and the fact that the gameplay is pretty basic, the story completely forgettable and it lacks any depth, I had fun with it and once I started playing it I was lost to the rest of the world.
The Last Cube is a solid puzzle and platforming mix, with a focus on solid planning and careful execution. I like the pure nature of moving through the levels, constantly trying to keep in mind which face of the cube can interact with what element of the environment. But this is an experience enjoyed in small doses before the drabness of the universe gets to you.
Young Souls is a solid beat-em up that intelligently adds role-playing ideas to enhance its core gameplay. The bosses are well-designed and mostly fun to fight, especially if the player wisely diversified what the pair can do. The narrative is not groundbreaking but gives players plenty of interesting moments and cool banter (again, with plenty of swearing that can be filtered out).
République is proof that mobile games can have depth and can be as complex as their PC or console counterparts. Despite the many improvements it brings, the Anniversary Edition cannot shed its touch screen heritage and the control on the gamepad is still cumbersome.
Hero’s Hour shows how compelling and fun the Heroes of Might & Magic formula can be when a developer gets the core mechanics right. It takes a little time to get used to the real-time battles and the limited direct control, but the formula works well and delivers interesting choices and solid challenges. There’s a lot of variety when it comes to both maps and setup options, while the AI knows how to play to win.
Normally, I’d say that Dawn of Ragnarok is just more Assassin’s Creed, but in a different environment and with different enemies. However, I do believe it’s time for Ubisoft to get rid of the Assassin’s Creed naming scheme from everything related to Eivor’s Viking saga. I think this is just piggybacking on the Assassin’s Creed franchise without bringing anything new into the mix.
Distant Worlds 2 is a rich space-based, real-time strategy experience that can provide hundreds of hours of fun to a dedicated fan. The writing and narrative aren’t interesting enough but the mechanics more than make-up for this weakness. The automation options are deep and make it easier to focus on certain aspects of the 4X concept, delegating the rest to a decent computer algorithm.
FAR: Changing Tides even when it's at its best feels like the game world itself: empty. It feels a bit that the game aspect was less important than the experience part. I believe FAR: Lone Sails offers a much more dynamic experience than the sequel.
Submerged: Hidden Depths is an interesting experience that will certainly bring back those who loved the first installment in the series. The exploration is engaging, the world has plenty of secrets to discover, there are plenty of cool moments to be a part of. The lack of conflict makes the game stand out from the crowd and will certainly attract an audience.
Elden Ring is everything that I dreamed of and more. Although I did expect From Software to refine the Souls recipe, I was quite surprised by the large amount of new mechanics and how well the Souls formula has been implemented in an open-world environment.
Quest for Infamy is an archaic game, that was not adapted well to modern consoles. It has several design and gameplay issues, yet after finishing it I had to admit that I had fun with it. It may be just the nostalgia for the games I played in my teenage years, but Quest for Infamy managed to engage me in its world and story.
What Lies in the Multiverse is a short, but intense experience. Unfortunately, the fun is overshadowed by the loose control scheme and the fact that not even the latest patch fixes the issues of the corrupt save file. It is too bad, especially since the character design and the dialogues are quite inspired.
Zombie Rollerz: Pinball Heroes has a solid core gameplay loop but lacks any extra elements that can keep players engaged for a long while. The narrative is almost non-existent, characters are bland. Even the rogue elements seem like an afterthought, a good way to justify multiple runs but nothing more.
Dealer’s Life 2 is a niche game that’s best enjoyed in short sessions over a longer time frame. The haggling mechanics balances revealed info and hunches well and the special events add some needed variety. But after around one week of in-game time, I start to get annoyed at the randomness of the objects and the very rare items I lack the money to try and get.
Martha Is Dead lives or dies by its core narrative and ability to immerse the player in it. I like the way it mixes the personal with the historical. I appreciate the care with which the developers have constructed the game world and I even like most of the photography-focused challenges.
Crusader Kings III has good mechanics and production but what sets it apart is the way it connects to the era it depicts. The experience leans into role-playing and personalities in a way that feels true to the image that most players have about the period between 867 to 1453. Without striving to be educational, the Paradox title also manages to be an excellent jumping-off point to learn more about the period, its main characters, its social dynamics.
Infernax uses retro elements very well, but this is not an experience that simply appeals because of nostalgia. The core mechanics are very good, the action is fun, the level of difficulty can be tweaked to suit both veterans and newcomers. This is how modern developers should approach old ideas.