Neil Bolt's Reviews
A mixture of realistic hunting simulation and literal walking simulator with a fairly gentle introduction, The Hunter: Call of the Wild is certainly not a game for the impatient. It's beautiful vistas and sedate pace make it a very chilled out experience for the most part, full of relaxing exploration, but to engage in the hunt itself is a tremendously time-consuming act.
The sequel boxes are generally ticked off with Shadow of War, it's bigger, better, and a touch more ambitious than Shadow of Mordor was, but there are aspects that feel somewhat dated now, and there's a lack of polish to certain controls that dilutes the fun just a smidgen. The Nemesis system remains the star, and with the addition of sieges and tribes, it's a star that burns brighter than ever.
As a videogame, Fragments of Him falters far too often, providing very little interactivity, and dragging things out to pad the brief runtime. Yet there's something here worth experiencing from a narrative perspective. This is a well-written eulogy of a recently deceased man by the people whose lives intertwined with his, covering his flaws, strengths, and sexuality in frank and brutal fashion.
War of the Chosen overhauls the already fabulous XCOM 2 and turns it into absolutely essential fare. The introduction of the Chosen, the soldier bonding system, and the photobooth mode, are perfect additions in that they amplify the base game's best qualities. It's just a shame the shine is dulled ever so slightly by a bunch of needless technical issues.
Marvel vs Capcom Infinite isn't the massive step back that was feared, but it's not exactly kept up with the frontrunners of the genre either. There's lots of fanservice in the daft melodrama of it's story, and the fighting itself is still flashy and as punchy as before. Just don't go in expecting an evolution of the series.
While it doesn't address some longstanding degradation of ingenuity in certain areas, PES 2018 provides the best pure football found in a videogame, and the additions it has made only amplify that.
This is very much more Everybody's Golf with a few extra brush strokes and a overtly pleasant online portion to round it out. The result of that is easily the best version of the game to date, and with a good price point and welcoming structure, it's a fine place to visit for a few holes.
While the fun selection of characters teaming up to destroy hordes of demons and soldiers is a hoot, Warriors All-Stars is otherwise a weak, uninspired jumble of a Musou.
Two years old it may be, but Undertale arrives on PS4 feeling as timeless and inventive as ever.
What The Escapists 2 does do is improve its look, expand your options for escape, and throws in a hilarious multiplayer. What The Escapists 2 does not do is make itself significantly more accessible and forgiving. If that put you off the first time, there's little to convince you to play the sequel, but for fans, this is a rather pleasant upgrade.
With Observer, Bloober Team have crafted an interesting, and often clever, sci-fi horror game. There's a few tiny technical hitches, some detective work that feels a little too obscure, and a lead character voiced in an inconsistent manner, yet the strength of the game's world-building, and execution of its memorable literal head trips, softens the blow considerably.
As improbable as it sounds, Thimbleweed Park has brought the Lucasarts adventuring heyday kicking and screaming like a three-headed monkey into 2017 with the sort of verve few would have expected. Thimbleweed Park is utterly essential for point and click adventurers everywhere.
Housemarque's understanding of arcade shooting mechanics is, as ever, strong with Matterfall, but it lacks the flair and bombast of the more thoroughbred members of its family. The core concepts carried over from Housemarque's previous efforts may be signature moves now, but they are starting to grow a little tired, more so when the game they feature in isn't among the best the developer has put out.
Taking the better aspects of classic and modern Uncharted, The Lost Legacy is a short, explosive chunk of adventure. Chloe and Nadine are elevated far beyond the supporting roles they once played, and both end up as interesting, formidable, and highly likeable characters, among the best in the series in fact. There's a greatest hits feel to some of the set piece moments, and the story takes a little time to get going, but this manages to be both a fresh direction for the franchise, and a warmly familiar experience.
To have Cities: Skylines on PS4 is wholly welcome. It may suffer slightly for the transition, but what makes it a wonderfully accessible and engrossing city builder is still there. It may be a touch simple for the sim enthusiast, but it has the ability to draw a wider audience into the genre, and that's something to be happy about.
Sonic Mania successfully takes Sonic back to the formula that saw him become a big deal to begin with. That means it does bring along the flaws in that design as well, but there's no denying this is as good as the Blue Blur has been for a long time.
The second Mega Man collection is a touch light on content, and by this point the formula has grown tired. That doesn't mean there isn't joy to be had though, as what is on offer remains as solid, colorful, and stimulating as ever.
The Long Dark is a shot in the arm for the survival game. The story mode is a decent addition, adding some mystique to the cold wilds, yet it currently doesn't trump the personal stories you create outside of it in survival mode, where joy, hope, dread, terror, and despair come in unpredictable waves. The game's harsh, grounded style will divide opinion, but it truly feels like a fresh perspective that incorporates the risks and rewards of survival and exploration.
While its individual parts aren't anything particularly special, Vostok Inc. melds those parts into a unique, amusing, and compelling whole. The manner in which developer Nosebleed Interactive has fused a clicker game to a twin-stick shooter and made sense of it is impressive. A rather nice surprise.
When Super Cloudbuilt clicks, it's platforming at its best. That only comes once you've spent a decent amount of time learning its ways however, because the learning curve towards that nirvana is riddled with plodding, awkward discovery. In the meantime, the dreamlike locales and intriguing story serve as motivation to push through.