John-Paul Jones's Reviews
Nightdive Studios has done once it again with Blood: Refreshed Supply. Not only has the developer lavished its typically heady amount of polish and care on Blood: Refreshed Supply, but so too does it deserve a whole heap of credit for refreshing (pun intended), one of the best shooters of the 1990s for contemporary consoles. Boasting some incredible level design, massively satisfying weapons and a wealth of additional content, Blood: Refreshed Supply deftly mimics its resurrected protagonist by still holding up so darn well all these years later.
Much like its grizzled and long dormant protagonist, Outlaws + A Handful of Missions has been pulled out of the doldrums of retirement to lace up its boots, load up its guns and ride into the sunset. It's old, gruff, unapologetic and certainly not for everyone. For me however, the opportunity to replay one of my favourite cult PC shooters of the 1990s in arguably its definitive form, easily makes Outlaws + A Handful of Missions worth the price on its head. For everyone else, a snappy and surprisingly clever Wild West retro shooter beckons.
Much like its primary protagonist then, Rue Valley certainly has no shortage of faults or shortcomings and it's also practically impossible for Rue Valley to escape the vast, looming shadow of ZA/UM's epic adventure, Disco Elysium. Taking all of that into account however, Rue Valley's Disco Elysium meets Groundhog Day concept is a compelling one that finds itself ably anchored by a great art style, good writing and interesting characters and it's one that will surely tide over Disco Elysium fans looking for their next existential adventure fix.
Another home run for those wizards at Digital Eclipse whom I hope will never stop weaving their game preservation magic, Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection isn't just a pitch-perfect trip down memory lane, it's a love letter, a tantalising peeling back of the curtain, a look behind the scenes of one of the most legendary and landmark videogame franchises ever made. If you have even the smallest modicum of fondness for gaming's original bad boy, then the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is as essential as essential can be.
Though Streets of Rage 4 remains the bar to pass, Double Dragon Revive even feels markedly less satisfying than the excellent Double Dragon: Rise of the Dragons which was released a little over two years ago. That said, while Double Dragon Revive does implement some neat mechanics which would serve future games well, the lackluster 3D character models and dull worlds act to its ultimate detriment, resulting in plodding combat that rarely satisfies or compels. If this was intended to be a true revival of Double Dragon, then someone forgot to bring along the soul because what we've ended up with is a hollow facsimile of what Double Dragon should be, rather than an evolved celebration of everything we loved about it in the first place.
I can well imagine that when you're situated in a hydraulic miniature car attached to an arcade machine that is blaring out the audiovisual presentation of Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition at full tilt, that it's something of a compelling if not a mildly intoxicating quick fix of arcade racing goodness. At home however, and stripped of such performative trickery, Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition fails to impress and really needs much more meat wrapped around its bones to justify its existence away from the din of the arcade scene which birthed it.
Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 might not be the sequel that folk from 2004 wanted for their game, but it is the game we've got. Though largely sparse open world and technical issues are hardly encouraging, the beautifully evocative interior environments, surprisingly engaging traversal and combat mechanics, together with its neatly unconventional 'buddy movie' conceit which sees two vampires attempting to inhabit the same body and each with their own motivations, makes Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 a good deal more intriguing than I originally expected it to be.
A breath of fresh malodorous air, Blood West's take on ponderous demonic murder in a Wild West that is as weird as it is wild feels overdue for a setting that has otherwise stagnated with traditional open world efforts and fairly dunderheaded shooters. Sure, it's a little rough around the edges and the low-poly, retro 90s visuals invariably won't be for everyone, but there's an old-fashioned earnestness to its design and approach to progression that is almost overwhelmingly endearing all the same.
Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition then is deeply flawed and arguably struggles to trace a satisfying gameplay loop over the lines of its source material. However, it gets enough right with the atmosphere and general presentation that it ends up being one of the best 6/10 games I've played in a good while. Though that might be damning with faint praise and certainly far from a perfect organism, I still feel Alien: Rogue Incursion Evolved Edition is worth checking out for Aliens fans all the same.
Ghost of Yōtei is that rare sequel that not only maintains the essence of its highly successful predecessor, but also qualitatively leapfrogs it in just about every meaningful way and metric. Underscored by a grippingly furious tale of revenge inspired by a layer cake of classic Japanese samurai cinema, the best combat ever seen in a samurai title and the most compelling open world since Red Dead Redemption 2, Ghost Of Yōtei is a jaw-dropping demonstration of Sucker Punch Productions operating at the peak of its considerable powers. Ghost of Yōtei redefines the term 'must-have' and wholly validates PlayStation Studios broader approach to embracing single-player epics such as this.
Look, the story sucks, the use of Unreal Engine 5 isn't really that well optimised and the progression system feels like an arguable step back from what we saw in the first game. However, taking all of that in consideration all the same, Forgive Me Father 2 still provides a frequently impressive looking and appropriately blood pumping shooter that allows players to live out their Lovecraftian carnage fantasies.
There's no getting around the fact that Lost Soul Aside feels like it belongs in the mid 2010s and honestly that would be fine were it not the fact that the game feels so compromised in so many other aspects of its design that it's difficult to shake the feeling that it just feels outdated, rather than a heartfelt love letter to the past. Though the soundtrack is frequently excellent and the combat reliably exciting, neither are enough to save Lost Soul Aside from tumbling into a deep abyss of rank mediocrity, which is a shame; especially considering the sheer amount of graft that has gone into the game since its inception all those years ago.
Purely operating on a bang-for-buck ratio, Karate Survivor figuratively karate punches far above its weight, that much is for sure. For around five bucks, you're getting a modestly made, though ultimately enjoyable take on the increasingly worn Survivors-like formula that satisfies with its bone-crunching action that riffs on the trashy martial arts cinema of the 1980s and 1990s. Just don't expect to be so reliably entertained in the longer term, as Karate Survivor's staying power leaves something to be desired.
Thanks to Nightdive Studios, that ultra reliable bastion of remastering excellence, Heretic and Hexen have never, ever looked this good or played this well on console. Certainly then, Heretic + Hexen might just be Nightdive's best remastering gig yet and that really is saying something when you consider the heady calibre of their output to date. They don't make em' like they used to - luckily, we have Nightdive Studios to make sure that they do.
The best point and click adventure effort to come along since Thimbleweed Park, Lucy Dreaming is a relentlessly entertaining genre effort that deftly blends well structured puzzle design with the sort of delightfully irreverent and offbeat humour that will have you grinning and quietly chuckling like a loon throughout its duration. A great point and click offering that you can enjoy with a nice cup of PG Tips, I suspect that a cuppa of Yorkshire Tea would be more in line with what the creators intended.
Ultimately, if you can forgive the crusty aesthetics (and I would encourage you to do so - even if there is a lot of forgiveness to be dished out), Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition will still absolutely decimate your social calendar as it thoroughly draws you into its Dungeons & Dragons setting. It's just a shame that some more care and attention wasn't lavished to give this re-release the proper love it deserves.
While Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream won't win any awards in terms of its challenge or implementation of stealth mechanics, I absolutely fell in love with its opulent setting, excellently heartfelt performances, gripping story and linear stealth adventure goodness that did just enough to satisfy my stealth hunger. Though some may rightly decry its lack of challenge relative to other entries in the stealth genre, Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream is nonetheless a stunning debut for Swedish based studio River End Games and I can't wait to see what comes next.
So, EA Sports College Football 26 is better than last year albeit demonstrating its superiority in a measurement of inches rather than miles. That said, the raft of incremental improvements, massive amount of content to stuck into which when married with EA's reliably all-star, blockbuster presentation which succeeds in emulating the audiovisual sensation of the real-life spectacle mean that EA Sports College Football 26 remains an essential purchase for those looking to hit digital college gridiron. All in all, EA College Football 26 is the best football game to come along for a good while and once again supplants the Madden NFL franchise as the premier gaming series for America's most passionate sporting pastime.
Unlike other seemingly similar efforts that want to tempt players down 3D platformer memory lane for a concentrated hit of nostalgia and leave it at that, Ruffy and the Riverside doesn't just take that well-worn idea and repackages it, but instead adds something refreshingly compelling to the formula. Though some minor flaws and polish issues do abound, they aren't enough to take the shine away from one of the most charming and thoughtful 3D platformers in ages.
Zombie Army VR then isn't going to set the VR landscape alight and neither is it going to bring untold masses into the sweet bosom of VR adoption. What it will do however is give you a nice, fetid and appropriately rotting slice of zombie meat cake to devour and you'll do it with a grin on your face as you chase high score multipliers and all the unlocks in one of the more surprisingly effective arcade style VR blasters to come along in a good while.