Cubed3's Reviews
LEGO Marvel Avengers for the 3DS is another lacklustre conversion of a superb LEGO game. Hopefully, the rumoured NX hardware will finally give gamers the opportunity to experience the full package on a handheld. To be fair, it's not all bad, and, yes, there are some great stages, and the game is stuffed to bursting with the series signature humour and style. The low price tag helps, but overall this just feels forgettable.
This educational video game is certainly far better than most Sometimes You titles, but it's also an average one. Note, however, that it's not average compared to "the real deal," but to similar material, because there are games, novels, toys, and TV shows that are far better company to a three or five-year-old… It's not like they have a long attention span, after all.
Type:Rider is an enjoyable 2D experience through the history and advent of typography. By combining the haunting and dreary visuals with captivating and clever stage designs, this is a game worth checking out. While not a long game, it can be quickly completed while still providing quite a challenge in terms of puzzle solving. If learning about typography doesn't sound immediately interesting, Type:Rider has surely made it an amusing way to learn and there are some memorable stages that make replaying it for the time trials fun.
Mighty No. 9 fails on so many levels it is tough to forgive. Despite a huge budget, it feels incredibly cheap. The platforming is not smooth, the voice acting is horrendous, the story ham-fisted, the challenge more frustrating than fun, and it's impossible to not be compared to better platformers. It fails to use so many modern conventions, all while still lacking any sort of retro style, leaving it in a weird lurch where it neither has nostalgia going for it, nor any modern sense of fun. Not even fans of the genre will enjoy this as a lesson for what not to do. It is lacking in anything that might redeem it, such as style, or heart, and, unfortunately, tries to slide by mere virtue of a Mega Man-clone and fails even at this task.
The developers technically made a smart design decision by limiting the player's available timeframe to eight in-game days (or a couple of real-world hours), because it facilitates unlocking all the endings through multiple playthroughs. However, those eight days are so incredibly dreary and underwhelming that most players will be immediately discouraged from doing so. Considering that only a new form of disappointment awaits at the end of each path, however, that's probably for the best. The commitment to a unique, indelible atmosphere in Breached is admirable, but it absolutely cannot carry the entire experience, especially not when the rest of that experience is so dry and under-realised.
Puzzle Labyrinth's only redeeming aspect is its idea of combining genres. The presentation is dull, and the direction is too disjointed and arbitrary, which makes the experience fade quickly into a frustrating and unattractive one.
Phantaruk is a mixed bag of both off-putting and exciting ideas. It would be a stretch to say it's one of the scariest games around, but it's definitely not a chump. Any survival horror purist should put up with the myriad of issues, because underneath them is a haunting experience.
Ninja Strike: Dangerous Dash is little more than an overpriced iOS game. In fact, that's precisely what it is. Low quality visuals are masterfully blended together with low quality sound design to deliver a package that can't seem to even reach the glories of mediocrity. There are countless endless runners on the Wii U eShop, and Ninja Strike simply doesn't offer anything to make it worth purchasing.
Sun Dogs has many flaws. The main one, however, is that this isn't a game - it's an unfinished, badly written sci-fi tale. Actually, it isn't even that! A tale has a beginning, middle, and end. This is just a series of semi-randomised, and very disjointed, pieces of Arthur C. Clark-esque text. Apologies to the late great futurist!
Collateral Thinking doesn't suffer from a lack of variety so much as it suffers from its excess. The goals in each level are constantly changing, and with only 30 seconds per level, it feels like a mad rush to get moving, which is counterintuitive to how the sticky controls dictate the pace of play. The levels sort of work when confined to one specific design, but the constant jumping between objectives is annoying at best and frustrating at worst.
The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 feels like a game made for those who live in internet meme culture and who believe classic adventure games are the last great phase of video games. The heavy-handed approach at humour is at times hysterical and at others insufferable. Saved mostly by solid gameplay and puzzle mechanics, the biggest issue it faces is not knowing when to stop. Plodding on for hours and hours, the humour wears thin and its strengths are battered by exposure. Were this game to have been half the length it would hold potential for greatness, and that greatness is still there, just stretched thin over far too much canvas.
It's tough to be so critical on a game that was obviously a labour of passion for someone, but the nitty gritty is Red Goddess: Inner World is just not very fun. The art isn't bad; in fact, the bright and colourful nature of the game mixed with its simplicity of design could lead to it being enjoyable for children, but beyond the first hour or so, there is simply nothing happening that offers any real surprise or intrigue.
Layers of Fear: Inheritance will not edify those who found the base game didn't have enough action. However, it's a more honest horror experience. While the original tried to wow the audience with it's crazy hallucinations, Inheritance clearly just wants to remind you there's a person under there, suffering through them.
Wiping away the Star Ocean part off of Star Ocean : Integrity and Faithlessness, this is actually pretty decent. It's a standard fantasy RPG that tried out some new ideas, did well in some, faltered at others, but came out easily on the fun side. However, remembering what series this title is actually in, it feels more like the development crew tried to read off of the Tales' series homework notes, but didn't manage to fully copy them down. Their competence saves it from failure, but it feels like they were trying to copy from another series and didn't really try to give it the distinct Star Ocean feel it should have. Decent, enjoyable, but not a "true" Star Ocean.
Zero Time Dilemma is the weakest game in the trilogy, yet it's an unmissable piece of the puzzle that every Zero Escape fan needs to play. It isn't the satisfying conclusion hoped for, it has some uninteresting characters, and the pacing is off, but even with the unanswered questions, there is still a story here that warrants playing through, especially as it develops and wraps up the arcs of the familiar, better and more important characters in the overall narrative.
Naughty Dog spoiled us with The Last of Us. As such, it was always going to be a difficult task for Uncharted 4 to meet those standards, let alone exceed them. The unfortunate thing is that whilst it has improved on certain aspects over the previous Uncharted entries - namely stealth, a little more freedom, and a real sense of discovery in hunting down a long lost treasure - there are a few too many slip-ups with regards to plot and characters, with lacking combat and set pieces also contributing to the pitfalls. It is undeniably gorgeous to look at, and the fun is definitely there on multiple occasions, but it is missing that Uncharted charm that made the series so great in the first place.
Make no mistake, Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force is a big step up, and its changes are good ones. Even if it will cost more upon release, should you seek to get involved with the original, this is the entry to do it with. However, the stitch-marks where things were added in after the finished game are quite clear and unhidden. On the whole, though, it is a welcome improvement over the base title.
The QTEs may be very lacklustre in Batman: The Telltale Series - Episode 1: Realm of Shadows, even compared to Telltale's earlier works, and the combat scenes need work, but there's plenty of opportunities to grow after this first episode. All in all, it's a solid and promising start that establishes a world via "show, don't tell," and sets up enough plot threads to keep players interested in what comes next.
Some of the content in Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Descent may or may not be the direct result of giving the work experience lad a bit too much sway when brainstorming for multiplayer locales, but credit where it's due, as it does add some much needed variety to the map rotation. While the selection is decent enough, Empire's vibrant splendour serves only to emphasise Cryogen's generic aesthetic, in the same way that Berserk's highly detailed, sprawling Nordic layout makes Rumble look fairly sterile in comparison. Fans of the shuffling undead will soak up every rotten second of the particularly strong 'Gorod Krovi' chapter, but it still remains a steep challenge for the lesser skilled zombie hunter who will likely never progress far enough to discover and enjoy its many secrets.
The series signature humour and gameplay fits perfectly with Star Wars, after all, it's what it was originally designed for! The new features add enough to keep this long-running franchise feeling fresh, the stages are short and fun, fitting perfectly to the handheld for pick up and put down gameplay. In conclusion: a great addition to TT Games' magnum opus.