At the standard settings and medium difficulty, Grounded is more demanding than it might appear at first glance: at the start of the game, everything that's bigger than a tick will slaughter you and it takes a bit to figure out how to progress; equipment also needs not only to be crafted but also maintained. Luckily, the game also offers settings that allow for a more forgiving experience, perhaps better suited to anyone who's planning on going solo. Other than that, Grounded is technically solid, and its audio can be incredibly atmospheric (and a little bit scary).
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In recent years, the old-school FPS genre has been undergoing a kind of rebirth; and if the results are games like Prodeus, we should be glad it has. Solid gunplay, excellent soundtrack, and graphics that might be old-school, but never feel dated: this is an excellent debut for Bounding Box Games. Granted, it's not flawless and the checkpoint system especially raises some eyebrows, but Produes is definitely a game worth checking out if you're into old-school FPSs. And even if you're not, honestly.
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Moonscars is a souslike (although 'lite' would better describe it) with a very evocative visual style and well-written characters. The gameplay is also good, but it suffers from a certain lack of enemy variety and a poor balance of character options, especially egregious when it comes to special weapons. Still, it's not a bad game by any means, but the competition is fierce in the 2D metroidvania / soulslike genre and standing out is not an easy feat.
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Developed by one man only – Jason Smith – Cultic is an excellent old school shooter. The campaign isn't particularly long, but the second part will come as a free update in the future (hence the 'Chapter One'), and there's also a fun survival mode that will let you hone your skills.
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The Valiant is a decent enough game. It most likely won't amaze you, especially if you've played other small-scale RTS games before, but its campaign is the right amount . And if you've liked Dawn of War 2 in the past, you'll feel right at home.
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Don't judge a book by its cover: Vampire Survivors has a simple gameplay loop, but strong enough to keep you coming back, and wanting more. Thirty minutes is the perfect lenght to make you think "maybe I can squeeze in another run", and before you've realized it the game has burned through the hours as if they were matchsticks.
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Sackboy comes to PC, and it's a big adventure indeed: our knitted hero will have to travel through five worlds in his quest to stop Vex from turning the entire Craftworld into a chaotic nightmare. Overall, the game is a good 3D platformer with an excellent soundtrack and a very creative visual style. Shame that the haptic feedback doesn't really bring anything to the table, though.
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Pentiment is a fascinating dive into XVI century Bavaria, that combines a murder mystery spanning over twentyfive years with a quick but accurate portrayal of the tumultuous social upheaval of the time. Its choice-based dialogue system only marginally influences the central elements of the plot, but the characters are well-written and artistically, the game is excellent.
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Evil West isn't a bad game, but it's certainly a disappointment. Jesse Rentier is a fun character to play, but unfortunately the encounter design doesn't always let his full capabilities shine, and the boss battles are downright awful. Still worth playing if you're looking for a decent singleplayer (or coop!) action with over-the-top characters, but perhaps wait for a sale.
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Darktide would have deserved a better score, because the game itself is good, real good. But poor optimization (not entirely justified by the game's looks), far too common game crashes, and a loot economy that cannot help but raise some eyebrows end up impacting the user experience. It's still a great 40k game, but you might want to wait for some patches if you're on the fence.
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If I had to define Crossfire: Legion in one word, I'd use "competent". If I could use more than one word, I'd say "competent, but overall lacking in personality." While it's not a bad game by any means, it also never really shines, it never surprises, and it doesn't leave a mark. It doesn't help that, despite a good variety of multiplayer game modes, the population has already dropped to a few dozen players. Still a decent choice if you're itching for more RTS gameplay, but don't expect to be blown away.
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Lone Ruin is an action roguelike with an intense gameplay loop, the kind of game that you want to keep coming back to. A shame that, even for an indie game, it's not particularly rich content-wise.
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Company of Heroes 3 is a convincing new chapter in the beloved RTS series, and certainly a far cry from a certain, grim-future-related misstep. Four factions, a new dynamic campaign set in Italy, a classic, linear campaign where we command the DAK, and tons of units to go around, mixed with the classic gameplay we've come to love over the years. However, it feels like quantity came at the expense of polish – some animations are a bit wonky, there's some graphical issues here and there, and the AI… well, let's just say that the new (and welcome!) tactical pause feature might not be all that necessary.
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Returnal might not be the mind-bending masterpiece that I was, perhaps mistakenly, expecting after the praise I'd heard from friends and colleagues, but it's still an excellent roguelike with clean gameplay and a beautiful presentation. Word of warning though: the lenght of each run combined with the difficulty might make it frustrating for some, and graphical optimization relies heavily on the use of supersampling technologies.
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The Great War: Western Front aims to be a faithful reconstruction of the many battles the France, Britain and Germany fought more than a hundred years ago, and of the context surrounding them. It definitely succeds at that, thanks to a very good soundtrack and to videos, posters and quotes from the period. Gameplay wise, however, the result is a game that is more catered towards a niche of players.
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Lately, the gaming landscape has seen a constant stream of open world action-rpgs that feel vapid and bloated and that might as well have all come from the same mold. This isn't Everspace 2's case, however. Rockfish's game builds and improves upon the achievements of its predecessor, delivering an incredibly entertaining combat, beautiful vistas, and plenty of content, managing to bring a much-needed breath of fresh air in an over-crowded genre.
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Minecraft Legends is a well-crafted action strategy game that drops us in a procedurally generated open world where we have to face the threat of the Piglin invasion, offering around fifteen hours of content for the main campaign. However, while the simple story points at a game mainly targeted at younger audiences, the gameplay mechanics require a bit of confidence with control schemes and might be hard to manage for less experienced players.
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While Stray Blade occasionally shows glimpses of the care and effort Point Blank obviously put into it, the end result winds up not too convincing, mostly due to a general lack of polish and balance.
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Not just a pretty face: Afterimage is not only a beautiful metroidvania, but also a very competent one, clever in taking inspiration from the right sources and able to deliver a world that you never get tired of exploring. Good thing too, considering how big it is.
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Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is a solid boomer shooter whose service honors the Emperor, and will certainly be very welcome by those who have been waiting for a 40k FPS since Fire Warrior. However, while it doesn't have any significant flaw it also never really excels.
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