Only Up! is the kind of viral game that gets a lot of attention due to the fact that an audience’s favorite streamers are playing it and raging. However, it’s a poor imitation of Getting Over It at best and feels like a rushed cash grab at worst. While SCKR Games manages to get the basics right and promotes a basic sense of accomplishment, it feels like this title has a long way to go before it can be considered even good.
While LotR: Gollum seems to get all the important names and locations right, the feel and look of the Middle-Earth that many have come to expect isn’t there. The few short entertaining moments aren’t going to be enough to keep anyone’s interest beyond the first hour, with much of the game’s activities after that feeling like an ever-increasing chore.
While Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow might lure players in with its cute designs and promise of Little Nightmares-like gameplay, it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. The gameplay itself is frustrating, often leading to unnecessary and pointless deaths, with no real understanding of how to do better the next time. On top of a myriad of other bugs, it would be hard to recommend this game, unfortunately.
In a world filled with 2D rogue-lites competing for our attention, Death or Treat isn’t able to stand up to the competition. There seems to be a myriad of visual and technical bugs that are keeping this game from reaching its full potential, but even that seems to be only half of what it could be. It’s not a bad game, but players should likely wait until it’s fixed and goes on a discount before they decide to purchase.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong feels like something that might’ve been released five years ago when it would be hailed as something special. However, it doesn’t do anything new besides telling a story that is already too complicated by the time players first take on a role. The mechanics are tightly contained, never allowing the player to fully explore the better parts of this game.
As much as I wanted to enjoy Remnant 2, I don’t think that a game should be that level of hassle just to get through the first experience it offers. It’s not a bad idea to make boss fights a little harder when more players involved, but your game has to be approachable by players or it will not make a wave among similar titles. Paired with the technical and extreme connectivity issues that we experienced during gameplay, it’s hard to recommend this game to anyone who wants to play without Google open for guides and server status checks.
My Friendly Neighborhood likely started with a brilliant idea of creating a Sesame Street-like horror game, but it feels as if that vision has been muddied. Through redundant puzzles, an overzealous attempt to be kid-friendly, and characters that are more annoying than frightening, this title is likely to be one of my bigger disappointments of the year. The idea is still worth checking out if you really like the concept or get the title on sale, but full price is a hard ask.
While Testament does some really fun stuff with puzzles, it doesn't really get interesting until you're several hours in. Whether it be the bland combat or seemingly endless lore the game wanted me to learn, I just never felt engaged by the world that Fairyship Games was trying to build around me. Testament is trying to do too much and falls short of an engaging experience because of that.
While God of Rock has a cast of unique characters and some amazing tracks to keep the rhythm to, the inability to see the actual fighting makes it hard to recommend as a whole product. That’s a shame because the concept is genuinely interesting and the fighting on the beat looks really cool in the few instances where you get to see it.
It feels like Waves of Steel wants to accomplish a lot with its wartime story and comprehensive shipbuilder. Unfortunately, the actual battle gameplay feels very simple and can be overcome pretty easily by just overclocking your ships. While the game seems to be getting positive reviews from players who love this genre, it’s unlikely to become a favorite among the general gaming audience.
Potion Permit is at best an okay game. From someone who was looking forward to this game for a while, it hurts to say, but it just doesn’t live up to what it’s selling. MassHive tries a lot of different things in this RPG slice-of-life game, but it doesn’t reach the mark on most of them. Players should wait on this title until it has received the necessary fixes and balancing changes, if then.
While it has all the hallmarks of the popular entries in the genre, Brotato fails to capture the same magic and overwhelming threat of previous action-roguelike titles. There are moments when the action is fun, unfortunately it largely becomes a bore when you spend too much time with it.
Tails: The Backbone Preludes is a really beautiful noir story that might go over the heads of some of the average player base. The dark themes and conversation mechanics are reminiscent of Disco Elysium but on a much smaller scale. It’s nice to live in this world for a playthrough, taking in the darkness of this dystopian city, but it might not be one players feel like returning to after the credits roll the first time.
Cities: VR is what most players have come to expect for the Cities: Skylines franchise. Players will load into a new map each time and attempt to use the land to create a booming metropolis. Unfortunately, while Cities: VR does this well enough, it doesn’t accomplish much over its screen-based predecessor. While the game is fun for a while, it quickly becomes annoying when the systems stop listening to the player.
The Atlas Mystery is a short escape room adventure that players of VR games have likely encountered before. While some of the puzzles are genuinely interesting, they don’t do enough to carry the narrative. Players looking for a spooky adventure through a 1930s movie theatre will likely enjoy it. However, players looking for a lengthy experience might want to stay away.
Core Keeper will be a lot of fun for players who’ve enjoyed past games like Stardew Valley, Terraria, and Minecraft since it draws from many of the popular mechanics in those games. There’s nothing entirely new in Core Keeper, just a rehashing of popular mechanics from other games. The only new thing that Core Keeper does is set the survival experience underground. Even still, players have been logging into Core Keeper to explore the underground and enjoy it.
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is an exciting stealth strategy game that allows players to build a crew of varied personalities worth exploring. While the levels may be complicated and take a large chunk of time per mission, it’s enjoyable enough that fans of strategy and past Mimimi Games’ titles will likely enjoy the new time-based mechanics that allow for the ultimate strategy gameplay.
Let’s School may be remembered as the most in-depth school simulator ever released, even towering above what Two Point Academy tried to accomplish last year. While there can be a lot of information force-fed to you at once, Panthea Games has done a great job of simulating the complexity of running a dynamic operation like a school. Even if it does feel less approachable because of that sometimes.
While Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun might be one of the more visually impressive retro shooters in a long time, it also provided me with plenty of frustration during my playtime. The monsters, guts, and gore make for exciting gameplay, but it feels like Auroch Digital is trying to milk it for all that it’s worth at times. Boltgun is a natural successor to retro 90s shooters, for better or worse.
While Innchanted doesn’t manage to do anything revolutionary, it does play with some fun concepts while evolving on Overcooked’s style. This game will likely be enjoyed the most by those who can play with friends as it’s a really good time when you get everything right. The game encourages the player to reach better milestones, but it may not engage the player long enough to reach those benchmarks.