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Devil's Third is caught between genres it never quite brings together, and despite fun multiplayer never gets over its shaky foundations.
The GamePad's gone, but Ubisoft's undead are just as feisty and thrilling as ever.
Thomas Was Alone creator Mike Bithell bypasses the difficult second album hurdle with a simple, elegant and carefully paced stealth puzzler.
This whimsical and original game mimics the disorientating effects of blindness, but fails to build meaningfully on its initial idea.
Back when I reviewed Hakkon I remember concluding that it was a memorable if not essential extra journey into the rich world of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and on finishing The Descent I am left feeling much the same. Series fans will enjoy revisiting some of the franchise's origins and likely also enjoy airing their views on the latest major lore additions.
As the game continues to pull these wonderful tricks of staging, the world of things that The Chinese Room has created settles into a more comfortable balance with the game's other elements, giving ground when needed to the human - and the inhuman - drama that's unfolding. Counter to my own expectations, this is not a particularly complex story to follow, but it is told with a wonderful assurance and a disciplined eye.
Galak-Z falls just shy of genius. That it quickly reveals itself to be a demanding game is no surprise considering its lead designer's heritage (Jake Kazdal worked at Sega on exquisite yet challenging titles such as Rez) and the source material from which it draws inspiration.
Set in a drowned city, this game of exploration lacks the substance or conviction to hold your attention.
A ridiculously generous and thoughtfully presented compilation packed with bona fide classics and obscure gems.
A twitch epic in which the journey from beginner to master is told not via new abilities, but in your hands and muscle memory.
Sure, even middling ARPGs are almost always fun for an hour or so, but Victor Vran will keep you hitting stuff and collecting loot for a lot longer than you might expect.
Stark and beautiful, Feist is a platformer that provides much adventure with its limited means.
Fast-paced stealth set to a ticking clock makes this a procedural platformer to savour.
Not being able to live up to such lofty rivals is no great shame, of course. Tembo is simply a very pretty, and pretty good, game, albeit one that never quite lives up to its early promise. That alone makes it the best platformer that Sega has released in years, and for that Game Freak deserves our thanks.
This is a game written for people who have worked in a particular kind of game development. It's hard to applaud the jokes when it's unclear where the lines between reality and exaggeration lie - and this is a story whose shoots grow from lived experience. Far easier to applaud the game's core gameplay invention, which enlivens The Magic Circle at its heart, and a piece of design that, unlike Ishmael Gilder, will surely find a life beyond its game.
The assumption seems to be that most players won't have the desire or the stamina to play a full round - though in light of the limited number of courses, it may simply be a way to minimise repetition. Either way, EA Tiburon has produced a game hardly befitting a player of McIlroy's talents. The so-called "next generation of golf" looks uncomfortably similar to the last, and there's substantially less of it. Only the quality of the underlying game saves this from the ignominy of an Avoid sticker.
It gives me absolutely no pleasure to report any of this. Sitting at my PC, wearing a Godzilla t-shirt and surrounded by plastic models of the series' wonderful menagerie, I wanted so desperately for this to be the game to truly realise the character's potential in gaming. I wanted Crackdown with kaiju. Instead, I got...this. The only thing being crushed here is the dreams of every monster movie fan who ever picked up a joypad.
But it's also thrilling. While the game lacks certain finesse (it's infuriating when you mistime a trigger, for example, and must restart the stage and repeat the entire trap-laying process from scratch; a soft save of your layout would have been welcome) and eventually becomes repetitive, its humour, idiosyncrasy and constantly shifting tool-set makes cruelty into a virtue - in the video game's consequence-less reality, at least.
As it stands, Batgirl fans are likely to be the ones most disappointed by this offering. If you decide not to fork over cash for the ability to step into Bab's impractically-heeled Batsuit, know that you aren't missing much. That said, if all you want is a few extra scuffles and challenges in a new space with a new face, this will scratch that itch. Just think long and hard about how much you're willing to pay for the privilege.
There's XP beyond that, and the promise of a scramble up the leaderboards, but I don't think Rocket League genuinely needs these things to hook you and hold you. Aside from the compact drama of the five minute matches, this is one of those rare games where the simple act of throwing a car around an arena is enough to keep you at it. Newton would approve and so would Batman. What more would you want?