Lee Mehr's Reviews
By lacking a sense of purpose or direction, it feels like Guerrilla Games & Studio Gobo couldn't be as creative with the license as they ought to have been; and, as a result, neither can you.
Even after accounting for The Veilguard's numerous flaws, perhaps Bioware's greatest offense is also its most ironic: making a Dragon Age game that feels pathetically toothless.
The oddly-named Cozy Game Pals blends unabashed nostalgia, earnest emotion, and a tense atmosphere to make a retro-horror experience that earns its time under the spotlight.
Alan Wake II's final expansion doesn't necessarily end with a whimper, but it was primed to end with an ear-ringing bang we'll never hear.
For all of the ambitious transmedia gimmicks surrounding it, Reflector's first title fails to awaken any sustained interest due to shoddy execution.
Nomada Studios' sophomore effort Neva-r ceases to impress – in spite of a couple of missteps.
As both a dull walking sim and story, Tonguç Bodur's latest feels like yet another purposeless jaunt.
Strange Scaffold's shooter is like a drunken boxer in a bar brawl: lacking consistency, but the blows that connect are knockouts.
The Plucky Squire's misused potential and diminished challenge keep it from scoring a Newberry Medal, but it still remains a charming children's page-turner that's tough to put down.
Digitales Interactive's sophomore effort explores intriguing topics with solid puzzles, but certain design and writing missteps prevent its interstellar potential from leaving orbit.
Goodwin Games' interactive folktale ironically evokes its dour atmosphere in two ways: impressive presentation and unpolished gameplay.
Slight reservations towards mechanical simplicity aside, Astro Bot's polish and relentless fusillade of charmingly creative concepts places it among the best 3D platformers in recent memory.
Overall, Star Wars Outlaws is an ambitious assemblage of different mechanics and concepts gracelessly pressed into an open world too confused to handle them.
Although Crytek's multiplayer relaunch fumbled on certain launch-window errors and design alterations, Hunt: Showdown 1896 is still the premier extraction shooter.
Through slick design refinements and engaging new storylines, The Iron Rig's otherwise conservative aims still make for a seaworthy expansion.
There's a certain irony to Creatures of Ava: that an unadulterated alien world teeming with wildlife can feel so tamed and overdeveloped by the very hands who crafted it.
The well-weathered gamer can easily spot its debt to Counter-Strike and Overwatch, but that shouldn't dismiss how those mechanical & aesthetic philosophies succinctly fuse together through Riot's own due diligence. As the saying almost goes: it's more than the sum of its plagiarized parts.
Jordan Mochi's singular vision can occasionally get ensnared by questionable design choices, but it's still a ride easily worth volunteering your time and money to experience.
While a satisfying audio-visual experience, SCHiM's design is but a shadow of its true potential.
While CLeM falls short of wowing you in wild narrative complexity or visual fidelity, Mango Protocol nevertheless succeeds through exact pacing and creative puzzle design.