The simplicity of Knights and Bikes lies within its need to revisit your childhood and remind you how much fun life can be, even when the storms are intense. It brings a great narrative to the table, throws some fun puzzles in the mix while delivering beautifully playful visuals that request you go on an adventure with a good friend. The game's intentions of stupid fun might outweigh its execution, but it succeeds in capturing the imagination and delivering a fun experience that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Rocket Arena is a very young battle arena shooter. It is off to a decent start, though the pain points of the game are blatantly obvious. Its intentions are to capture that Fortnite crowd with its personality but definitely falls short with its delivery in certain gameplay areas. There is hope for this game and I can see it succeeding with updates and expansions, but right now it's a tough sell when compared to its competition.
Nepenthe is a solid indie game. It's a fun, complicated RPG that has brilliant moments backed up by unique art and music presentation. It does have some bugs to fix, but nothing yet that isn't manageable or gameplay disruptive.
Overall, you get a bigger adventure with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, as well as a bigger world to explore. To cap it all off, the story does the character justice by pushing Croft towards a more mature and badass persona through her obvious and logical flaws. It hits all the right notes and tries new things to give the series a different direction. In the end, it's an impressive upgrade from the last game.
Mothergunship is a solid title that hangs its hat on weapon customization, while sacrificing some gameplay. It's definitely worth a go, even if only to show the insane weapon designs one can concoct.
All of the gameplay design choices made by First Contact Entertainment seem to be more on the good side of the scale rather than the bad. The menus could use some improvement and simplification, and maybe the eventual addition of a campaign, but nothing that can't be corrected in post. What you get with the design is good controls, lots of room for error during the game, intense gameplay with a smooth vantage point, and maps to get lost in when you want to get lost in them. The loadouts, the options of how to conquer your enemy will be the driving point to the gameplay. That's never a bad thing when those options are in the positive.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age is a beautifully designed game from story to gameplay construction. To boot, the game is absolutely gorgeous and is fun to watch in motion. The fact that you have easily over 70+ hours of gameplay (teetering on 100) makes the longevity of the adventure more memorable. This is how you make an RPG, and I hope that the good folks at Square Enix continue to develop the series the same way.
Phantasy Star is the best release so far from the Sega Ages series. It shows off innovation, outside the box thinking, and, after all these years, it is still a blast to play. It's one for the ages, folks.
Overall, Skelattack is a solid game that will put you to the test as much as it will mesmerize you with story and visuals. It might be a bit much for some, but the story makes the journey worth the trouble.
Horizon Chase Turbo is simple fun that doesn't offer up an overbearing challenge for its racers. It contains some good rewards, which help keep the player motivated, but needs to be just a bit deeper in the physics department. All in all, though, it's a fun arcade racer.
The Nintendo Switch version of L.A. Noire maintains everything good about the original release, while adding a few new tricks to the mix to make the game a little bit more interesting, including 'touch'. Beyond the Switch tricks, L.A. Noire is still a game I enjoy playing, especially in a portable form. It's like a violent Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego mixed with the open world structure of a Grand Theft Auto, both intelligent and dumb fun.
Berzerk Recharged from SneakyBox and Atari gives a tip of the hat to a wonderful 80s arcade experience, even at times when the hat tip means carrying some of the original frustrations.
Sairento VR is a fun experience and one that is far more complete than most VR gaming experiences out there. With it you get a good story, fantastic gameplay mechanic design and a good set of multi-tiered levels to use those mechanics in. This is more than just a gimmicky, short experience, which most VR games slip under these days, as it is a bright spot in a sea of VR shipwrecks.
Battlefield V is full of a lot more content than people might be expecting. War Stories contains meaningful experiences in short spurts, the maps in the game are huge and well designed, the modes of play raise the entertainment bar when compared to Battlefield I, and the customization/progression system will keep people occupied for a while, as well as provide motivation to keep playing. This feels like a Battlefield game, which should tame concerns of lack of launch content.
The gameplay design of Torchlight III is fun and motivating, but it has some deeper flaws that need to be addressed. Players must have a balance of difficulty and challenge. Giving players too much advantage at the beginning and overpowering them will not benefit the longevity of the game. If you need proof, go look at Bungie's Destiny 2, which is struggling to maintain challenging content, while believing that making players 'grind' for shoddy rewards is the right solution for the issue. Finding that balance of building up a character properly and delivering difficulty and challenging enemies along the way is what other action RPGs, like Diablo, classics. Echtra Games did a great job with the initial groundwork of Torchlight III's gameplay design, but it needs a bit more balance in some backend areas.
The gameplay certainly isn't perfect, as the younger audience that Tose and Square Enix are trying to reach rears its head in the gameplay structure once in awhile through the game's flow and simplicity, but World of Final Fantasy is diverse and deep enough to keep the excitement going from beginning to end. Just come prepared with a good GPU to push it on the PC. [Nathaniel Stevens separately reviewed the PC (8.3) and PS4 (8.6) versions. Their scores have been averaged.]
Frantics is a fun four-player party game that does its beset imitation of being a Mario Party lite. It's engaging, fun, at times frustrating, but nonetheless a good addition to the PlayLink game family.
Overall, this is the best version of Hitman you can get, as it is the complete version. This is especially nice, if you don't own any of the prior content.
The majority of my experience with Destiny 2: Forsaken over the last two weeks has been overwhelmingly positive. I think the addition of Gambit, the change up of gameplay design and leveling, the raid, and the sense of scale with the two additional maps has really notched the entertainment value for this series up quite a bit. Forsaken truly is the best thing that has happened to the series. They do need to get crucible cleaned up, though, and sooner rather than later.
Overall, if you liked Patapon 2 back in the day, you're going to enjoy this release on the PlayStation 4. It doesn't do anything particularly special other than giving you the game you might have loved in 2009 on a bigger screen.