The golden era of track-based arcade racers may be behind us, but that didn’t stop Milestone from developing a marvellous one in this day and age. This reboot of Screamer has all the core elements of a modern classic: a meaty single player campaign with a rich story, a fantastic sense of style, a snappy arcade-style driving model with a high skill ceiling, and plenty of content to enjoy in both local and online play. Screamer is bold, exciting, but most importantly, incredibly fun, and it may just be one of the finest arcade racers in years. If you miss the good old days of fantastic arcade racers with personality, do yourself a favour and buy Screamer.
Is Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! a stellar shooter? Not really. In fact, it doesn’t even touch the heights of Auroch Digital‘s own Boltgun. But this Starship Troopers tie-in is respectful to the source material, and the giant battles against bugs with retro shooter vibes is both fun and nostalgic. Not a ton of depth or variety to boot, and the lack of any form of multiplayer is a missed opportunity, but this all-out war between humans and bugs can be quite a riot at times.
Marathon is a hugely inconsistent game. Some marvelous vistas and stylistic choices, yet the world feels void of interesting events and feels small, with only a few small, static and repetitive maps. Some great shooting is accompanied by a crazy low TTK that encourages playing as passively as possible.
iRacing Arcade is a good time, but it comes short of true greatness. The presentation is cute, and the driving model makes for a solid arcade romp to waste some time on. But the snappy controls make faster cars not very pleasant to drive, which heavily impacts its viability as a “serious” arcade racer. A shame, because it boasts a fairly impressive list of tracks, a solid online suite and leaderboards, as well, on top of being tremendously well optimized.
POOLS is quite literally a walking game. No story, progression, dialogue or clear message to speak of – it’s all about vibes and interpretation, despite having some sort of an endign that’s open to interpretation. It’s a short but fascinating ride, even though there is barely any gameplay, which may turn away some people.
Rayman: 30th Anniversary Edition is how such remasters should be done. All versions, all the content you could imagine, tons of modern emulation tricks, a never before available playable prototype, and a brilliant new documentary to boot. It’s even priced well, at 19.99 USD/EUR! Now… can we please get a similar treatment for the Rayman sequels?
What we’re left with is a mostly competent, not particularly memorable arcade racer with a handful of highs, but some baffling lows as well.
It took six entries, but the RIDE franchise has finally graduated. What used to be promising, enjoyable, but ultimately not particularly remarkable motorcycle racers, now gave way to RIDE 6 – a legitimately great bike racing game.
Carmageddon: Rogue Shift is a mechanically satisfying destruction-based racer, offering high-octane and chaotic races combining bold weapons, lots of zombies and lots of crunching metal.
Don’t Stop, Girlypop! presents a brilliant audiovisual experience, combining over-the-top “girly” Y2K aesthetics with one of the fastest FPS modules on the market. If you’re a fan of the 2000’s pop culture, the high-energy female vocaled pop music of the era and have been dying to dazzle your weapons in a shooter, this game is for you. Those searching for an Ultrakill-tier boomer shooter, however, might walk away disappointed, as underneath it all is a slightly clunky, not particularly memorable sequence of arenas with big hordes of enemies and weak platforming on the side.
Ultimately, like many licensed games based on pre-school programs, Dora: Rainforest Rescue is not a deep or innovative platformer. It is, however, very loyal to the Dora IP, it is bright and colourful and incredibly accessible for even young players’ first videogame ever. It could have used some more inventive or variety, but it’s a great Christmas gift for young Dora fans. Especially now that it’s 50% off!
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is an absolute riot. It's not afraid to rely on copious amounts of nostalgia, while also pushing the series forward in the most logical direction. Treyarch have looked back at Black Ops 2 and 3 for inspiration, and have delivered a fantastic Call of Duty, full to the brim of incredible content.
RENNSPORT has all the core elements in place to be an engaging and accessible racing simulation. A handling that feels solid even a controller, a more welcoming approach than most hardcore sims have, and a lot of solid ideas to have great racing going at all times – against the AI and online alike. Yet, with only 12+2 tracks, a limited selection of cars, a lack of polish in many areas, various missing features and a confusing microtransaction model, it needs more time in the oven to truly become an essential racing simulation.
Let Them Come: Onslaught is a quality bullet heaven experience. It offers a lovely art style, an exciting soundtrack and an intense difficulty with well-designed level progression. It is, however, a bit on the short side, with only 4 levels, 2 characters and not a huge build variety.
XENOTILT: HOSTILE PINBALL ACTION is a great evolution of DEMON’S TILT sensational digital pinball formula. A table that looks and plays even better, various new modes and ideas, even though the general feel of the game has not changed much. Eye-popping 16-bit visuals, a banging 16-bit soundtrack and a brilliant gameplay loop.
1000xRESIST is a marvelous narrative-oriented videogame. Its minimalistic, sometimes slow gameplay is accompanied by one of the most engaging and well-crafted stories in modern gaming. Themes such as discrimination, rebellion to authorities and the pandemic are handled with utmost care and credibility.
Revisiting the original trilogy is still a blast, especially online, despite many other collections already exploring those games. Padding out the title count with many ports of the same goes is a bit futile, but a good exercise in game preservation.
Halls of Torment efficiently combines the highs of some of the best bullet heaven shooters out there, with immaculate Diablo-coded looks and sounds. Despite not being revolutionary, nor packing the outrageous depth of some of its rivals, Chasing Carrots‘ title is easily one of the most interesting and addictive titles in the genre.
The game’s presentation doesn’t quite do it any favours. Unimpressive graphics, odd visual design choices, floaty handling, physics and destruction that are legitimately worse than the old school Burnout games it’s trying to replicate. It also has its share of glitches with weird collisions, the framerate tanking temporarily at times and so forth. However, not only you get used to this, but the game just keeps improving. The open world keeps getting filled up, Live Mix keeps things fresh, and the possibilities of its online sandbox are practically limitless.
Ultimately, I walk away from Painkiller with somewhat mixed, but overall fairly positive feelings. The gameplay is fast, satisfying, with rock solid peformance and excellent graphics making for a blast of a shooter. It is, however, Painkiller in name only, as not only it loses the series’ core aspects, but also is rather uninspired all around