For now it's a game with a lot to offer, though mostly for players willing to meet its ambitions halfway. I can't help feeling that we'll see this speech mechanic refined and put to even better use somewhere down the line.
Provided all you want is the chance to shoot decomposing Nazis in the face hundreds of times over, you can't really fault Zombie Army Trilogy for delivering on the crude grindhouse pleasures implicit in its title. It's also hard not to wish the game didn't do more to deviate from its amusing but repetitive blood-soaked trajectory.
It certainly doesn't help that the debt to the superb Hotline Miami is so obvious. As I wrestled with the gluey movement and bizarre AI to find the fun in LA Cops, I was painfully aware that I could be having that fun already, in a more stylish and polished form, just by scrolling up my Steam library. As Omar so wisely said in The Wire, you come at the king you best not miss. LA Cops shoots way too wide of the target.
Lush appearance and polished mechanics are not to be sniffed at, of course, and even if the game's long term appeal never quite reaches the dizzying heights its first impressions hint at, the difference is barely worth quibbling over. It's no exaggeration to say that Ori and the Blind Forest is still arguably the best Microsoft console exclusive of the last six months.
Hardline is a solid entry in the series, and the fact that it seems to have launched without technical issues is notable though not really something that should need to be commended. It's doubtful that it will end up as more than a stopgap for fans, however.
It's just a shame that given the obvious talent and passion involved, it doesn't really have much of its own to add to the Metroidvania template. As charmed and delighted as I often was with its smartly paced escalation, its perpetually teasing construction, I kept waiting for some new element to appear, a eureka moment that either hadn't been thought of in 1986, or that could only be done today. It never quite happens. Axiom Verge seems content to be a homage, rather than a revival or reinvention. That's fine, since there's already plenty to justify your interest, but it feels like Happ has more to contribute than he's showing here.
As a follow-up to 2011's Dungeons, this sequel is much easier to recommend, fixing many of the problems from that game and introducing new ideas that fit better with the genre. It's still only a partial success, however, and between the fussy menus and interface, and the speed with which you'll find yourself resorting to trudging repetition, this still falls short of the game it could be.
I just wish it wasn't so clumsy where it counts, since there are few gameplay styles more off-putting than poor stealth, and the stealth here is often very poor indeed. Fans committed to the loopy storyline will probably be able to look past that and enjoy the surreal ride for its narrative and atmospheric pleasures. However, such frustrations can't help but drive a large rusty nail into the heart of an otherwise generous pair of expansions.
In the end, it's the surface details - the dry and gentle wit, the winsome voice acting, and the gorgeous design - that lash it all together. The deeper elements, the bones that might give it structural strength, feel thin. Broken Age doesn't quite suffer the fate implied by its title, but there are clearly fractures that time has failed to heal.
If all that is expected of an expansion or spin-off is to deliver more of the same, then The Old Blood goes above and beyond its obligations. The decision to downplay the story elements does sometimes leave it feeling a bit overwhelming and stodgy - the textures and rhythms that made its predecessor such a sleeper hit simply aren't here - but as a lovingly crafted continuation of a game that was already pretty bloody great, there's little here worth complaining about.
But Windward is neither of those things. After dozens of hours it still has you doing the same monotonous tasks you did at the very start, even as you claw your way to a slightly better ship in which to run your errands. For a game set on the deep blue sea, it's unforgivably shallow where it counts.
Basically, the game asks a lot of you, and demands that you pay close attention to every decision you make. While that makes for a steep learning curve, requiring deep thought is hardly the worst sin a strategy game can commit. Slyly funny, satisfyingly deep and yet slick and simple to play, Massive Chalice is a huge return to form for a studio that is overdue a comeback.
There have been more shocking and provocative things portrayed in the biggest blockbuster games than you'll see and do in Hatred. Maybe that's the point. Maybe this is all a garbled commentary on how normalised extreme violence has become in gaming. If so, it'll take something better than this tedious, glitchy shooter to ram the point home.
As a lifelong fan of Fortean mystery and atmospheric adventures, Kholat is a game I really wanted to love, but it left me out in the cold in more ways than one.
The gameplay is good, and very often great, but we knew that already. It's a known quantity. As a Batman story, this is something else. It dares to tackle not just the surface details of the character, but explores his psyche. It portrays him as, frankly, kind of a dick and also as a man of unflinching honour. The Batman of Arkham Knight is a complex, contradictory figure, a hero with real depth and dimension, and we get to wear the iconic cowl for one last mind-boggling night of mayhem. Miss out on that? You must be joking.
All of which makes PlanetSide 2 a real outlier at a time when major console releases are either utterly broken or blandly efficient. This is a game with some fairly major problems, but the rewards are so unique, so thrilling and occasionally thought provoking that even dropped frames, obtuse direction and dumb players can't diminish it for long. This is a game that will not appeal to everyone. Many will fall by the wayside when it fails to play like a normal FPS in the long term. Others will drift away, wearied by the endless churn of battle. That's why the game's free-to-play status is a good thing - those players will have lost nothing for their trouble. For those who click with PlanetSide's cold relentless vision of mass warfare, it can easily become an ongoing obsession. The only way to find out is to sign up and see for yourself.
It feels weird to be saying this at a time when sequels are far too prevalent, but while Ronin has its moments of brilliance during its short campaign, it ultimately feels very much like a proof of concept for a more generous and balanced game yet to come.
It gives me absolutely no pleasure to report any of this. Sitting at my PC, wearing a Godzilla t-shirt and surrounded by plastic models of the series' wonderful menagerie, I wanted so desperately for this to be the game to truly realise the character's potential in gaming. I wanted Crackdown with kaiju. Instead, I got...this. The only thing being crushed here is the dreams of every monster movie fan who ever picked up a joypad.
Not being able to live up to such lofty rivals is no great shame, of course. Tembo is simply a very pretty, and pretty good, game, albeit one that never quite lives up to its early promise. That alone makes it the best platformer that Sega has released in years, and for that Game Freak deserves our thanks.
A ridiculously generous and thoughtfully presented compilation packed with bona fide classics and obscure gems.