Sammy Barker's Reviews
Little Nightmares is like a fledgling chef's interpretation of a gourmet dish: it looks the part and hits the spot – but it won't live too long in the memory once you've greedily gobbled it up. Outstanding presentation is paired with some forgettable puzzles and a slightly fragmented fiction, leaving a feast that will satisfy without ever really forcing your tastebuds to explode.
It's hard to imagine the PS4 getting a better puzzle game than Puyo Puyo Tetris. SEGA's brilliant blend of brick building and blob busting makes for a frantically fun multiplayer experience, but it's got enough depth beyond its surface simplicity to keep you occupied for a long, long time.
The weakest episode in The Walking Dead: A New Frontier thus far, Thicker Than Water is paced awkwardly and doesn't spend enough time exploring the relationships that really matter. A good conclusion sets up the finale well, and there are some standout scenes over the course of the instalment. But an underdeveloped villain and some hard to believe exchanges make this a forgettable episode overall.
Outlast II significantly ups the ante in the production values stakes, but its biggest sin is relying a little too heavily on trial and error in the gameplay department. There's an unsettling story here that wanders into some quite shocking territory, but the writing doesn't always sing from the same hymn sheet, and some murderous moments are delivered a little too frantically for the fiction to fully marinate. Despite that, there's more than enough good on offer here to tempt you back to church. Pull up a pew and prepare for a psychological onslaught.
StarBlood Arena is a likeable PlayStation VR shooter that's well-presented and pretty fun to play. The problem is that there simply aren't enough people playing it, and with the online experience being far-and-away the biggest selling point here, that's a problem. If you can convince your friends to pick it up then there's fun to be had here, but with very little single player content it's a risk entering this minefield on your own.
Drawn to Death's juvenile presentation belies a nuanced shooter that's frankly a breath of fresh air. The title fuses fighting games with frenetic on-foot action that feels quite unlike anything you'll ever have played before. Quality game modes and an imaginative roster of weapons are only let-down by the lingering microtransactions that have seemingly survived the title's business model change unscathed. Other than that, though, it's f*cking awesome.
It's colourful, there are collectibles, and it's got a rotten camera: Yooka-Laylee is a 90s platformer to a tee. Unfortunately, rather than a rose-tinted look at the titles of yore, this game falls into all of the same pitfalls as its predecessors: it's rough around the edges, often annoying, and at times even a chore. And yet for all of its flaws it's still packing the most important ingredient of all: the compulsion to collect everything is strong here – and it'll remain even when you're grinding your teeth.
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier - Episode 3: Above the Law is simmering. Javier Garcia is a great character, and aside from some cartoonish bit-parts, the cast that he's surrounding himself with is equally intriguing. Clem's inclusion feels a little forced at this point, but it's good to have her around all the same. An unsatisfying conclusion lets this instalment down, but we're still very much enjoying the ride.
Everything is not for everyone, and thus it's a hard game to score. This existential experience is not quite as pretentious as it appears to be, but it will still leave you mindful of your worth to the world – and the universe as a whole. Honestly, if you've ever found yourself enchanted by the sheer scale of space itself, then this game does an incredible job of communicating that through rudimentary interactivity alone.
Perhaps the main takeaway here is that FlatOut 4: Total Insanity is safer than its name suggests. There's not a lot to criticise in terms of its execution, but its ambition feels firmly rooted in the PlayStation 2 era. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, and if you're looking for a distraction to occupy between juggernaut releases, then the PS4 isn't host to many destructive racers that are better. But while there's fun to be had while you're playing, don't expect this above average car crash to live long in the memory at all.
On a system bursting with great horror games, you can safely side-step Dying: Reborn. While we appreciate the attempt, the production values just aren't in place to create the tension that's intended here, and even though there are a couple of decent puzzles on display, there's not enough meat on this murder mystery's bones to make it worth the price of admission.
Too many brickwalls prevent Clicker Heroes from reaching the "highs" of AdVenture Capitalist, but this is still a frighteningly addictive incremental title. The simplistic gameplay loop means that it's better suited to smartphones, but that doesn't make it any easier to put down once you get started – even on the PS4.
Disc Jam has all of the ingredients of a classic but it just doesn't feel fully cooked. Flat visuals and some balance issues prevent this disc tossing sim from reaching the same highs as Rocket League, even if its gameplay loop is fairly accessible and sporting some great depth. That said, though, if this is High Horse Entertainment's Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars moment, then we can't wait to see what it delivers next time it takes to the field.
An oddity that grows in stature the more time that you spend with it, NieR: Automata is so much more than you think it is – and it's all the better for it. Some decent writing aside, its side-quests fall into genre pitfalls and its open world can be annoying to navigate. But if you're able to look beyond its shortcomings as a game then you'll be richly rewarded. And while we can't really elaborate on why that is, you're just going to have to trust us.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - Banned Footage Vol. 2 is arguably an even better piece of DLC than its already excellent predecessor, but our excitement for the additions is tempered by frustration that they should have been included with the main game. We liked the core campaign as it was, but with these packs bolted on it could have scored higher. Still, what you have here is some truly inventive content that repurposes the game's main mechanics in a variety of interesting and exciting ways.
VR Ping Pong's a steeply priced simulation that mostly misses the mark. The presentation is rudimentary and the gameplay is awkward and unrefined. The developer may argue that we're just bad at table tennis, but we have no problem in real-life, so clearly there's something awry here. Factor in technical glitches and this is difficult to recommend.
Enormous, open levels augment Sniper Elite 4 with some of the best long-distance shootouts that the series has seen thus far. The under-the-hood improvements – paired with the idyllic Italian backdrop – do give this entry the edge over its predecessor, but if you've played one of these games before then you'll know more or less what to expect. Nevertheless, as far as ball busters go, it doesn't get much better (or wince-inducing) than this.
Like matriarch Marguerite's dishes, bonus mode Ethan Must Die will prove an acquired taste, but the two other VHS tapes included with Banned Footage Vol. 1 are a delight. Nightmare serves up some surprisingly smart arcade action that fans missing Mercenaries will surely enjoy, while Bedroom is brilliant puzzle sequence that subverts the rules of the main game in order to create a real sense of tension without requiring any enemies at all. There's no question that had this content been incorporated into the main campaign it would have been an even stronger package overall, but as a standalone it's still easy to recommend.
At its very best, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a barnstorming survival horror with some truly brilliant boss fights. Granted, the game isn't always able to maintain its own high standards, but it eclipses its abysmal predecessor with ease. While it borrows ideas from a variety of different sources, it manages to feel both original and old-school all at the same time. And even though fans are likely to be divided by the release's direction, make no mistake: this is the change that the series has needed for quite some time.
Even though the core of Gravity Rush 2 remains largely unchanged, you'll be hard pushed to find a fresher open world title in a sea of Grand Theft Auto and Assassin's Creed clones. Kat's traversal mechanic is still among the most satisfying that the sandbox genre has to offer, and an endearing cast of characters means that you'll actively want to spend time in their world. The combat and mission structure may still be this series' biggest shortcoming, but colourful scenarios mean that you'll stick around long enough to see the sizeable story and its many side-quests through. So, while not everyone will be dazed by what this release has to offer, the sequel should at the very least ensure that existing fans continue singing Kat's chorus.