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Mario Strikers returns with a stripped back entry for Switch that's ultimately less fun to tackle.
Though if you’ve any affection for the genre, or any love for the likes of Darius and Gradius, then there’s really no reason to wait until then. Drainus has a silly name and a few small frustrations, but that doesn’t stop it delivering the same heart-soaring spectacle and sharp, satisfying action that makes the greats soar. This might fall just short of being one of them, but it’s an exquisite shooter all the same.
Through its invasion mechanic, Sniper Elite 5 achieves the ultimate goal of any sniping game, to capture the tension and drama of Jude Law and Ed Harris squaring off in Enemy at the Gates. If, like me, you watched that film when you were too young to do so, and thought "I wish there was a game that let me do that", rather than the more balanced "wow, war is terrible," then Sniper Elite 5 is that game, just without the Russian setting or Rachel Weisz. Couple that with eight superbly flexible sandboxes and the most imaginative interactive representation of the second world war in at least a decade, and you've got yourself one of the most entertaining games of the year.
Soundfall plays like an extended pop album, each level a three minute burst of music that initially fizzes and delights. Yet playing on repeat proves shallow. The music is killer, but the gameplay is filler.
Salt and Sacrifice is a riff on what came before, but not an entirely successful one. A tense, fraught combat system with gallons of customisation options carries Ska Studios’ sequel, and boss fights are entertaining if overly tough at times, but the storytelling and narrative designs of Salt and Sanctuary can’t hold up their end of the bargain.
You know that moment in a good roguelite where you've overextended yourself, but you've also won riches that you don't want to lose before you can bank them? This is what Loot River is built for, ultimately: I race around the world, dashing from one tile to another, breaking off from a little continent, an archipelago of burning wood and then searching, searching for the level's exit as I eye my tiny health gauge with fear. A procedural dungeon-crawler where you can rescramble the once-scrambled levels? Gary Chang would be proud.
King Arthur: Knight's Tale is not without its charms, then, but it's not the once and future king you might have been waiting for. Maybe watch Fast and Furious instead.
There is real anguish and intimacy here, real experience, real softness, pensiveness, complexity of thought, from the deeply clever, immaculately balanced systems to its extraordinarily well-realised art, static drawings of those characters that each feel like a glossy, coffee table magazine cover of their own, such is the incredible texture, colour, posture, pain behind the eyes. Citizen Sleeper is speaking to you, but in this case I really recommend you simply listen - not least because there's depth to be found in your own silence, and because the things it does have to say are absolutely worth hearing.
A brutal but graceful and comprehensible mix of ideas from Warhammer, XCOM and Gears Tactics.
Ultimately, though, these games are so refined, and delivered with such odd, coffee-shop-and-library charm, that it doesn't matter how you play. My daughter is of the age where she completely missed the Wii, so when this new game arrived and we started moving the furniture around, she didn't have a clue what we were up to. But that afternoon we must have played together for hours, with breaks for when a diving header animation made her laugh so much she needed her breath back. The whole thing was intoxicating.
That said, the logic of progression or goals is a moot point when the actual traversal does feel good - certainly a damn sight better than Sonic's lowest points in history - and the grind almost disappears as minutes go by and I realise I'm just enjoying running for the pure sake of running. It's probably the most polished experience to have graced Roblox so far, an easy gateway drug to tempt newcomers to the platform. For Sonic fans, it's a glimpse at what could be possible with the hedgehog's future, if this is what Sonic Team's 'open zone' design is going for, albeit with more structure and actual challenges. And besides, it's free - surely it can't hurt to give it a spin?
Rogue Legacy 2 really is a lovely game and I’m glad Cellar Door have included options to make it more approachable. It stands as a terrific example of how to let players tailor their experience to their liking, whether that means a helping hand or dialling up the challenge.
Above all, though, Kaiju Wars has a wonderful feel for the cadence of a monster movie. It's always building towards those third-act reversals when your literally downtrodden cast of 16-bit expendables finally manages to break the creature's stride, your tanks ramming its ankles so that your experimental laser can rumble into firing range, in what feels exactly like the fruition of a desperate plan concocted in the back of a racing Humvee. What occasionally looks like a thin parody is, in fact, a labour of earnest affection for a species of story that, as with zombie movies, most nerds understand at the level of muscle memory. Forget sinister illuminati-style organisations - the kaijus' most fanatical adherents are surely the developers themselves.
It certainly isn’t a matter of a lack of talent at PES Productions. I don’t believe for a second the developers don’t know how to make a better game than this - we need only look at the last few PES games for evidence to the contrary. These are vastly talented, experienced, passionate people, working as best they can on a deeply flawed concept with a spectacularly poorly communicated plan. They don’t deserve chastisement on social media, though they’ll inevitably get it. But equally, eFootball 2022 still doesn’t deserve your time yet.
Those small - or big, depending upon your personal view - irritations aside, there's a lot to enjoy about Chinatown Detective Agency, and the story's just about worth the ride. Personally, I'm a little tired of the penchant for retro pixel art, but if you can make your peace with the other lightweight or frustrating mechanics, Chinatown Detective Agency introduces you to a memorable cast and takes you to some striking places. What a crime it is, then, that such a promising premise doesn't quite do enough with them.
Moss: Book 2 is without a doubt a game that deserves to be played, especially if you fell in love with the original. Its staggering beauty is reason enough to dust off your PSVR for one last adventure before the PSVR 2 comes out, even if I wouldn’t blame you for holding out in the hope of a PC VR or Quest release - or some kind of bundle for the launch PSVR 2.
A serviceable restoration of one of the best and strangest games in Squaresoft's back catalogue.
For the most part, the game's film retellings are humourous if simple fun - there's nothing here you can't button mash or Lego brick smash through - and I particularly enjoyed Rise of Skywalker, where that film's often-daft script is well sent-up. After a quick tour, however, the game's open worlds held less pull.
A bold, atmospheric yet dissatisfying ensemble RPG shooter, full of untapped promise.
Norco is a beautiful, surprising, human, and utterly magnetic debut.