Leonardo Faria's Reviews
In Rays of the Light is a massively disappointing game hampered by its confusing nature and abysmal optimization. So far, it’s the PS5-specific game with the single worst framerate in the console’s fresh, yet ever growing library. It’s a shame, considering that Sergey Noskov’s previous effort was such a delightful surprise, but this one fails to deliver in every single aspect except its soundtrack.
All I can say without spoiling things for you readers is that it’s a game worth experiencing. Despite the myriad of grammatical errors, this is an incredibly smart story that will catch players off guard with its inventive twists. It’s also one hell of a fun mix between an RPG and a rhythm game.
This game might be set in Ancient Mesopotamia, but there’s more bureaucracy in here than your average trip to the DMV, not to mention the lack of a true sandbox mode available right from the get-go. A commendable effort from a two-man team, but one that probably bit a bit more than they could chew.
As a project developed by a group of recently graduated game developers, Mail Mole is worthy of praise. It runs well on the Switch, it’s mostly devoid of bugs, and its character design is quite cute. Sadly, it’s a generic platformer with a very simple premise and forgettable level design.
When compared to other monster truck simulators out in the market, Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 is still miles ahead of its competition in terms of performance, gameplay, and overall amount of content. The problem is that there isn’t a lot of new content included in here to justify its existence as a full-fledged, pricey sequel.
I cannot think of any other text-based game that made me want to go for another playthrough with completely different outcomes as soon as I had finished my first one. This might not be the most visually compelling or action-heavy game released in recent memory, but it’s easily one of my favorite games in 2021 so far.
The developers did include some neat features, such as a story-focused reward system for collecting crystals and a (boring but still existing) horde mode, but at the end of the day, this feels way too clunky and unfinished for what’s basically a port of a Steam game released in 2015.
Room to Grow isn’t spectacular, but it’s not bad either. It’s a simple puzzle game with a very interesting gameplay mechanic that becomes a bit tiresome after a while due to its repetitive nature. The excessively simplistic visuals and sound effects don’t add much to it either. It’s fairly enjoyable, but as mentioned with many other small Steam indies I’ve tackled in the past, this would have been a better fit on the Switch or a phone instead of a PC.
Taxi Chaos isn’t really terrible. All in all, it’s a decent attempt to replicate what made Crazy Taxi so good twenty years ago, but in a new era of consoles. It’s just completely devoid of charm, with dull characters, visuals, and soundtrack. It’s fun for a few minutes, it manages to scratch your nostalgic itch for a while, but it’s definitely not a substitute for Sega’s near-perfect arcade franchise.
I was expecting for the Blizzard Arcade Collection to be a simple throwback to the company’s earlier days. However, I certainly wasn’t expecting to be overwhelmed with tons of extra content and brand-new Definitive Editions of each game included in the collection. This is a work of love, a fantastic tribute to one of the most iconic developers of the past thirty years and their iconic early titles.