As a fan of the rhythm genre, I was hopeful to play something new with Hexagroove: Tactical DJ. The problem is the game is a confusing mess where you never really know what you’re doing.
To be honest, I was looking forward to giving Cooking Simulator a shot. Unfortunately, the game will make you go through some unnecessary loops to understand what to do or how to do it such as cutting ingredients. Once you finally graps the concept, it’s pretty enjoyable for what it is, but gets old fast.
Mortal Shell follows the Souls/Borne genre to a tee. Lacks any accessibility, combat feels sluggish and cumbersome. Considering the game will only appeal to a limited niche of gamers, I cannot recommend Mortal Shell. The clunky combat, the dated visuals, lack of accessibility features, this feels like a cheap Dark Souls clone.
I’ll be honest, New Super Lucky’s Tale took me by surprise. When it first came out under the Super Lucky’s Tale moniker, I kinda dismissed it as it looked generic. But the more I played New Super Lucky’s Tale. It’s easy to pick up and play, perfect for gamers of all ages, features a great variety of gameplay mechanics. The long load times can be annoying, but it doesn’t deter the whole experience. If you’re looking for something light, play New Super Lucky’s Tale. It’s definitely worth your time.
She Sees Red is a great addition to the FMV genre. It features a thrilling, griping story which will have you guessing through the 2/3rds of your second playthrough to find out the truth. While the English voice-acting is told in a robotic kind of manner, it doesn’t take away from the story-telling. It takes about an hour and a half to do both runs so it’s a nice diversion. Don’t miss it.
Zero Strain is a great addition to the smhup genre. It’s frantic, hectic and challenging; maybe a bit too much. The unique arena like level design will definitely add an additional level of challenge as it reduces safe area space, but it’s definitely worth a try. Shmup aficionados, definitely do not miss this one.
Bite The Bullet is one of the most clunky run n’ gun games I’ve ever played. While the idea behind the eating mechanic is a unique and interesting approach to the genre, the execution falls flat thanks to floaty controls and levels that drag on forever. There’s a decent variety of weapons to keep the gameplay fresh, but it’s not enough from saving this rotting leftovers.
PGA Tour 2K21 features a handful of game modes. You can either play a local match, play online with friends, practices and of course, the pièce de résistance, tackle the PGA Tour with a custom created character. The PGA Tour mode will have you go through qualifying rounds in order to be considered worthy of the PGA Tour. While the qualifiers are pretty perfectly balanced (also according to the selected difficulty; more on that below), the PGA Tour is a progressive climb through the golfing world ladder. As you clear courses, the difficulty, complexity, and challenges increase progressively making for a fun and perfectly balanced challenge.
Through my multiple sessions of Lost Wing, I realized that the only thing holding back is the nuisance caused by actually running out of ammo; it’s a bit unfathomable given that this is a shmup. Otherwise, this is an interesting entry in the hardcore genre. Fans of the shmup genre will be delighted to play something different, unfortunately it’s not the ideal game for newcomers.
The Mean Greens – Plastic Warfare is a great game and diversion for fans of the online modes of the Call of Duty games. Either the typical PvP mode such as Capture the Flag or Team Deathmatch or unique twists on PvP such as the Table football map will be a nice diversion from Call of Duty. Unfortunately, the lack of single player is a huge miss here because it could’ve given the single player games aficinados the closest thing to the movie Small Soldiers.
The Alto Collection is definitely one of best games to come out this year on Xbox One. Sure, it’s not as deep as some other sports games, but it’s easy to pick up and play mechanic makes it ideal for gamers of all ages. The goals aren’t that difficult and both games’ procedurally generated levels ensure that no playthroughs are similar. Don’t miss out.
One of the best strongest points is the fact that if you’re playing solo or with a friend, you can switch between Rash, Zitz and Pimple by pressing the corresponding d-pad arrow (except the shmups and platforming levels). This gives players a chance to try out all three characters and also a lifeline if the current character they are using is near death, they can switch with a full health character.
Turok: Escape from Lost Valley is an overall fun little adventure game that can appeal to gamers looking for a challenge. While it has a cute, cartoonish look that may appeal to kids, this is not for kids as they will struggle against bosses. It’s far from perfect as it suffers from questionable gameplay design and detection issues, but if you into it with a Dark Souls mentality, it’s a nice bite-size adventure that can tide you over until the busy Fall season.
Unless you’re an NBA 2K fan that needs a bit of variety or you have a few friends to play with on a regular basis, simply avoid Dunk Lords. The gameplay is fun and I do appreciate the mix of basketball and combat inspired gameplay, but playing against the A.I. is a frustration filled experience. The fact that they rarely miss shots and mow you down on the court, even on the easier difficulty setting, doesn’t make it a fun, arcade basketball game.
Max And The Book of Chaos is an overall worthy addition to the run n’ gun genre. Levels are bite-sized, perfect for quick bursts of play, there’s decent enemy variety and bosses are fun, lengthy, and challenging. Unfortunately, mostly caused by the single screen level design, the game feels like it gets repetitive quickly. If you can overcome the fact that the game’s difficulty ramps up pretty quickly and the special weapon picks up are useless more often than not, you definitely don’t want to skip Max And The Book of Chaos.
While I’m a huge fan of these types of compilations, it’s hard to recommend Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection. The games haven’t aged well, newcomers to the series will feel beaten down by the games’ difficulty, even on the easier setting. And being older games, the gameplay content for each of them is the strict minimum. Unless you’re a long-time die-hard fan of Samurai Shodown, this is a pass.
Destroy All Humans! is a semi-open world game as players are thrown into different open areas to complete mission objectives in order to move on to the next. Each mission contains a vast open area where players can take a bit of time to explore before heading directly for the objective.
We should talk. is definitely an interesting entry in the visual novel genre. While the main concept remains untouched, the fact that each answer can be created based on a variety of words opens up the door for a more realistic feel of control over the path and end of the game. Even though some answers don’t fully match your selected answers, We should talk. is one of the most enjoyable and entertaining visual novels I’ve had the chance of playing. If you’re a fan of the genre, or hell even a newcomer to the genre, We should talk. is a must-play.
JRPG fans will revel in Monster Viator. It follows the typical formula to a tee by adding its own sense of uniqueness by adding jobs mixed with monster collecting (in a way). Being able to recruit specific monsters for your party can allow for a lot of variety in terms of party members and subsequent battles. Sure, it’s not perfect as it has balancing issues, but once you get a grasp of the pacing after about an hour, this becomes trivial; same thing with the abundance of loading screens.
If you enjoyed the original Superhot, you’ll obviously be happy of getting more of it. For everyone else looking for an enjoyable FPS, you might want to look elsewhere. This is a case of a concept sounding good on paper, but with a failed execution. Its unique mechanic making feel like a stuttering mess; as if the game was not finished. This is an easy pass.