Here’s the key thing to know about Hitman: Blood Money — Reprisal: as long as you go in with the right level of expectations, it’s a whole lot of fun.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden represents Don’t Nod’s latest attempt to try and make the whole action thing work. This time out, though, they’ve taken the novel approach of trying to play to their strengths, by creating a narrative-heavy action game with a heartfelt story and multiple endings that depend on your choices. Does it work? I can definitively state: kinda, sorta, depending on how you look at it.
It ultimately comes down to how much you want a game that gives you insane levels of power but that also puts checks on it. You’re the creative type who appreciates that balance, there’s plenty to like in Teardown. If you just want to go smashy-smashy, you can do that here, too, but the end result may be more frustrating than you’re expecting.
With all these complaints, you might think I hate Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, but I don’t. I mean, I don’t love it, but given such a huge, richly imagined world, it’s hard to be too annoyed with it. There are definitely plenty of improvements that would make it more enjoyable to play, but as it stands, it’s a perfectly serviceable open world adventure.
This is a destructible, semi-open world where you can run (er, roll) around smashing things to your heart’s content. That may not be enough to fully redeem Bang-On Balls: Chronicles, but it’s at least enough to make it fun in doses – even if it’s not as fun as I would’ve hoped.
A quick look at the eShop shows more than 40 other solitaire games, many of them a lot cheaper than Super Solitaire. Given all that, it’s hard to see why you should play Super Solitaire over any of them. Mind you, that could probably be flipped to say that there’s no reason why you should play any of those other games over Super Solitaire. So, with that in mind, go for it, I guess?
Even with its bugs and glitches, there’s still a decent game to be found in The Lamplighters League. It doesn’t quite hit the highs it could, however, so if you’re enticed by the promises of XCOM-meets-Indiana Jones, be aware that performance issues mean it’ll never quite be as good as it could be.
How high is your tolerance for bugs, jank, and glitches? How much do you pine for early days of Sonic’s foray into 3D gaming? Your answer to those two questions will probably determine how much you enjoy Penny’s Big Breakaway.
The whole game is something you’re either going to love or hate. Pacific Drive isn’t going to leave many (or any) people saying, “Enh, it was okay.” You might think it’s a brilliant take on the survival genre, or you might think it’s endless amounts of busy work without enough of a payoff, but either way, it’s guaranteed to get a reaction out of you.
Chasing the Unseen has a bit of an identity crisis. It blends together a bunch of different ideas that don’t quite work and that don’t quite seem to mix...but at the same time, it comes so close that you can’t help but be both fascinated and frustrated by the end result.
Even as someone who likes cats and puzzles – in other words, the target audience – I wouldn’t say I’d recommend Quilts and Cats of Calico unless you’re already a fan of the board game. No matter how cute and cuddly it may present itself as, the reality is much more demanding.
It’s hard to recommend Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 without acknowledging that big DLC-shaped elephant in the corner. It’s not as bad as, say, the NBA 2K series or any others like it that are effectively pay-to-win, but it’s enough that it could put a damper on your enjoyment of an otherwise fun game. That said, if you can ignore the DLC push and just want a flashy racer, this will deliver on that.
As this new and improved version shows, El Shaddai ASCENSION OF THE METATRON HD Remaster is still very much a game for a very specific niche. Beautiful visuals and an inventive story can only take you so far; at some point the gameplay needs to be there too, and as you’ll see time and again, that’s not the case here.
That’s what makes DreamWorks Trolls Remix Rescue so frustrating: it’s <i>so</i> close to being good, but its flaws make it almost impossible to recommend. It’s far better than it has any right to be or than its pedigree suggests, but it’s still going to be a letdown to almost everyone.
Cavern of Dreams is very much a game for a specific kind of person. As noted above, someone who loves ‘90s 3D platformers, doesn’t mind a few quirks here and there, and has a high tolerance for gaudy colours. If that’s you, you’ll want to check this out.
However frustrating Tomb Raider I-III Remastered may be to modern eyes, there’s no denying that these games perfectly capture the spirit of the originals. Whether any of that is enough to appeal to modern audiences remains to be seen, but if you want a game that caters to your PS1 nostalgia, this is definitely it.
For a niche audience, Skull & Bones may be a GOTY contender. But for everyone else, it’s hard to imagine the appeal. Skull & Bones is a grind-heavy game with not a lot of payoff, unless your idea of payoff is being asked to grind some more.
You’ve got an interesting setting, a ton of material, all kinds of ideas, and a studio that clearly knows what it’s doing. That all of that got combined into something as forgettable as this is pretty disappointing, and it makes it awfully easy to skip past this game without a second thought.
It’s taken 25 years, but thanks to Outcast – A New Beginning we finally have a sequel to Outcast. And, in a tremendous bit of irony, where the first game was a look into the future of gaming, this new one feels a lot more like a look back – or, if you want to be a little less polite about it, Outcast – A New Beginning feels like a relic from a bygone era.
Lifeless Moon spends way too much time telling, and not nearly enough time showing. And on one level, I get it: a small indie studio isn’t going to have the budget to show how a civilization on the moon fell apart. But at the same time, when you’re this good at creating an atmosphere, it can’t help but feel a little disappointing when the rest of the game doesn’t quite measure up.