Jukka Piira
Shenmue III takes a certain state of mind because it’s unmistakably what Shenmue used to be, and not how it’s supposed to be now. I hope that there will be Shenmue IV to give closure to the story and like this, it will stay true to what it is.
The game comfortably speeds along a yellow brick road that goes neatly between calculated appeal of Forza Horizon and the excess abundance of The Crew, and that’s why I liked it better than those two.
It took about 15 tumultuous hours to see Blacksad’s investigation through, including repeated quick-time events. Years’ worth of reading and watching detective stories didn’t go wasted as I figured out early on who must be the mastermind behind the crimes and in the end, I was really pleased that I got it right. I was happy how my story concluded but there’s a lot of variation how individual scenes or even bigger lines can turn out based on choices you have made along the journey.
Crying Sun is stylish, fast-paced and simple to play but its content runs thin and it can also be often unfair because of its high reliance on random factor. It may be true that half of everything is luck but in the long run, it doesn’t always turn into meaningful gameplay.
If the game features a trophy for dying 50 games, you will know that it won’t be a walk in the park. Especially when you’re most likely to score it early on and there are even no difficulty levels, putting everyone to face the same ordeal. It’s an entirely different matter whether the challenge is fair or unfair, though. After all, the line between the two is notoriously thin.
I love the game that is bubbling under all the excess garbage. This year’s MyPlayer is pretty much what I would have liked to see before in the series, even though I had to play it with Plan B characters as photo uploading in-game didn’t initially work. Despite its crappy presentation, MyCareer is also endearing and inspiring.
Including all unavoidable failures and retries, it only takes two hours to play Stela through. In that sense, the asking price of twenty bucks is a bit too steep. However, the game is well done and the gameplay focuses only on the essential as there’s nothing extra to distract you.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered advocates certain innocence that is lost in the today’s gaming climate. Too often games are about killing, killing and some more killing, told in gloomy, cheerless tones.
Not to mention your character is actually someone with a purpose in the story’s luscious context and not just some putrid-faced nobody fighting for whatever unclear reason.
If you shun DiRT Rally’s authenticity or F1 series’ almost tiresomely detailed race weekends and don’t mind the deficiency of online features, GRID is just about the best game you can get if you only fancy racing fast.