Josh Wise


108 games reviewed
69.4 average score
70 median score
67.6% of games recommended
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Apr 5, 2021

If only Naka, staying true to form, had given the whole thing a dose of high speed; his work only holds together when it hurtles past our eyes, growing vivid with velocity.

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While the spectacle of a gruff, coffee-pounding Pikachu in a deerstalker hat will never not be charming, Detective Pikachu Returns is less enjoyable than both its breakthrough predecessor and, somehow, the surprisingly decent Hollywood movie spin-off. The odd world-building is still on point, though, and younger players will doubtless find some fun in the not-so-murky corners of Ryme City, even if the intrigue is light and the detecting itself is a little rote.

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4 / 10 - Saints Row
Aug 22, 2022

Indeed, there remains about Saints Row the air of a slightly desperate brainstorming session.

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4 / 10 - The Quarry
Jun 18, 2022

Far more damning is the fact that The Quarry, though happily thronged with beasts, is barren of scares.

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If only House of Ashes were possessed with something malevolent enough to actually scare us; sadly, it commits a litany of sins, none of them original.

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Mar 4, 2024

Skull and Bones is a dull exercise in checklist progression, spiced here and there with some impressive sailing.

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More than any other studio, Ubisoft is willing to mutate its existing IPs until they scarcely resemble what they once were.

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5 / 10 - Far Cry 6
Oct 11, 2021

As it happens, though I played for much longer, I had had more than my fill after the first four hours, with no desire to venture back in.

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5 / 10 - SkateBIRD
Sep 21, 2021

In an odd way, then, Glass Bottom Games has captured the truth of the situation; contrary to its mission of cuteness, it has made a game that feels hollow-boned, caged by unflattering mechanics.

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Sep 8, 2021

At the end of The Artful Escape, all I could think of were the words he fired back at a heckler, angered by the electricity in the air: I don’t believe you.

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5 / 10 - 12 Minutes
Aug 30, 2021

There are, of course, multiple endings, and the minutes leading up to each resolution can be flavoured with violence and revelation, or laced with deceit. The question is: Do we care?

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5 / 10 - The Ascent
Jul 31, 2021

Its skyline is happy to quote at length from Blade Runner, but the poetry is in short supply.

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Jul 14, 2021

We begin to see our hero’s life as a line—darting and looping instead of living.

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May 5, 2021

Reaching the credits, I sat back, exhausted and disappointed at where the series had ended up.

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5 / 10 - Outriders
Apr 9, 2021

The best time I had with the game was a ten-minute stretch that contained (a) no crashes or bugs, (b) the right level and world tier-essentially, a measure of enemy toughness-and (c) a harmony of tactics, sorcery, and gunfire.

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5 / 10 - The Medium
Jan 28, 2021

Bloober Team has summoned a rich atmosphere, under all that writing, and one or two sequences offer glimpses of a purer game.

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Oct 28, 2020

Where the action comes alive is in the leaving behind of bodies altogether. Most missions involve breaking and entering, and the thrill lies in the absence of any breaking.

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In the absence of meaningful stakes, Frog Detective's trading sequence mechanics might seem shallow and its detective work may feel basic, but perhaps that's deliberate? In focusing on whimsy and charm above all else, Frog Detective is allowed to just be funny and daft on its own merits, and that's where it shines.

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Feb 8, 2023

Neither a reinvention of the series nor a return to its roots, Fire Emblem Engage finds a comfortable middle ground. It's another polished skirmish (with Suikoden-like town planning on the side) that will keep Fire Emblem fans happy, but its lacklustre plot and lack of branching choice (like Three Houses) ultimately hold it back.

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Dec 13, 2022

With its close-hugging third-person camera and its mood of air-locked foreboding, it's hard not to judge The Callisto Protocol through a lens tinted by Glen Schofield's earlier creation, Dead Space. And while its more violent tendencies diminish the tension somewhat, there's still plenty to recommend here.

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