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Such is the nature of a game that's trying to offer something for everyone; invariably, there's never going to be quite enough of the stuff you like. And perhaps Mario Party's desire to be truly inclusive will always hold it back from being a classic. This is, at least, in the upper echelons of the series: a little short of the Hudson Soft heyday, maybe, but better than every entry since the fifth, and certainly superior to the anaemic eighth entry and the pointless handheld versions. Wii U owners already have deeper and more substantial multiplayer options, but few - if any - of them are quite so welcoming to all.
Lush appearance and polished mechanics are not to be sniffed at, of course, and even if the game's long term appeal never quite reaches the dizzying heights its first impressions hint at, the difference is barely worth quibbling over. It's no exaggeration to say that Ori and the Blind Forest is still arguably the best Microsoft console exclusive of the last six months.
Still, small beans in a game that is otherwise so elegantly put together. Starships isn't Civ, but it is Sid, and that's fine by me.
Speaking of replays, occasionally, on a very long pass, the ball will just freeze in the air, immobile as one turn ends and another begins. It's beautiful: so much attention focused on something so seemingly trivial. The ball hangs in space, while everyone on the ground rushes to switch up their plans to take into account where it's going to land. Adaptation, anticipation, creativity: this is what strategy is all about - and this is a game that really gets it.
Hotline Miami 2 leaves me conflicted. There's lots to love here, but the structure makes it difficult to explore and exploit. It's still an absolute riot to play, and the urge to press on remains compulsive, despite the narrative hi-jinx. Its failings are never enough to truly spoil things - Hotline Miami 2 is definitely to be recommended. It's the sequel that everyone expected, perhaps. But I'm not sure it's the sequel the original truly deserved.
It certainly doesn't help that the debt to the superb Hotline Miami is so obvious. As I wrestled with the gluey movement and bizarre AI to find the fun in LA Cops, I was painfully aware that I could be having that fun already, in a more stylish and polished form, just by scrolling up my Steam library. As Omar so wisely said in The Wire, you come at the king you best not miss. LA Cops shoots way too wide of the target.
The star of the show isn't your foes, though, and it certainly isn't the fascist 'goodies' you're cast as in this knockabout imperialist satire. The star of the show is the panic that's generated as you head into adventure, knowing that you're this close to screwing everything up for your team in a darkly hilarious manner.
Provided all you want is the chance to shoot decomposing Nazis in the face hundreds of times over, you can't really fault Zombie Army Trilogy for delivering on the crude grindhouse pleasures implicit in its title. It's also hard not to wish the game didn't do more to deviate from its amusing but repetitive blood-soaked trajectory.
With space battles now more spectacular than even the evergreen Eve Online, and with far less effort required to enjoy them, this sees two excellent games restored. While in a past it was tricky to argue a decisive case for either of the Homeworld games for greatest RTS of all time, now they've been forever merged, updated and supplemented with the original games, the collection is indispensable.
OlliOlli2 remains very faithful to the template its forbearer set, down to the additional Spot and Daily Grind additional modes that focus attention on deliberately brief scoring challenges. Cautious as its updates initially seem, it is another superb twitch game, obsessed with the currencies of difficulty, speed and score. Best of all, it manages to capture so much of the movement and feel of skateboarding without ostracising players who have never touched a board in real life.
It's a few minor tweaks away from something special, and the same applies to Screamride as a whole. While there's nothing in Frontier's latest to make your stomach churn - with the possible exception of its honkingly awful dubstep soundtrack - there's not quite enough here to get your pulse racing either.
But this is really a game for a subset of an already small audience. It's hard to see total newcomers, or fans of hardcore strategy, won over by Empires' strategy-management RPG blend, in much the same way that you wouldn't expect fighting game specialists to be entranced by the Musou combat system. It's a strange compromise really, yet somehow it manages to work. As such, it's certainly worth a spin, perhaps with the upcoming F2P version, if only to get a taste of the Musou series' most complex and thoughtful offshoot.
For now it's a game with a lot to offer, though mostly for players willing to meet its ambitions halfway. I can't help feeling that we'll see this speech mechanic refined and put to even better use somewhere down the line.
These are intriguing times for gods in games. If the collapse of Peter Molyneux's Project Godus is an apocalyptic turn of events for the genre Populous gave life to, a new breed of "god sim" is on the march - one that seeks not to portray a god but to mechanically enact the uncertainties that make us wonder if deities exist. Breath of Life is a remarkable contribution to this highly select field. Its strength is that it looks at the same predicaments as Portal and Bioshock from a compelling angle, unburdened by lore, but it doesn't quite have the spark to be breathtaking.
Dead or Alive: Last Round doesn't have the contortionist special moves required to master its Street Fighter rival, making this the more immediately accessible game by some margin. But neither does it have the mascots of Capcom's stable (it's telling, perhaps, that the most recognisable characters here are borrowed from Ninja Gaiden and Virtua Fighter). But at its deeper levels, it's an equally engaging and challenging proposition as its rivals, a quick tempo test of dexterity and reaction that, at its best, transcends the mildly grotty aspects for which it is best known.
Total War: Attila is undoubtedly a welcome addition to this 15-year-old franchise and it's a relief to find it stable at launch, but there is clearly room for further optimisation. It's a credit to The Creative Assembly that it is still experimenting and tweaking its systems to achieve the right balance of complexity and challenge, even if a few too many of its concepts fall the wrong side of the frustration/satisfaction divide for a little too long. Still, you need only be mindful of the advertised difficulty level of each of the factions in order to triumph and, through extended play, the excitement suggested by all that early potential does, eventually, come to fruition.
The Order: 1886 isn't a disaster, nor is it a particularly good game. It's a hollow diversion, entertaining but outmoded and caught somewhere between a medium it repeatedly fumbles and one it fails to effectively embrace.
It's been a while, but Arc System Works picks a ripe moment to revive the heavy metal fighter that gave the studio its start. Guilty Gear Xrd is a vibrant, expertly handled return for Sol Badguy and company, with updated mechanics that should help wean newcomers onto its aggressive style of play, while appeasing the old guard with new options. It's among the PS4's best presented games to date, and a real highlight of the series.
Ultra's label insinuates that this is the ultimate realisation of Housemarque's original vision. In truth, it's little more than a re-skin, and the seasoning of novelties adds little of enduring substance. Instead, the original remains a classic. Its somewhat sterile charms are undiminished by time, and so space cadets will find much to love here, in the bustle of a perennial galactic rush hour. Veterans, however, need not apply. Whether that's testament to Housemarque's delivery of an original that could not be improved by tampering, or its new custodian's lack of vision, is another question.
This is a shooter with ambition, designed with skill and craft, and rich with tactical possibility. If it had the punch and physical feedback of some of its less-intelligent genre mates, Evolve could have been a classic. As it is, we'll have to do with a monster with plenty of bark, but not quite enough bite.