Cubed3's Reviews
Jotun relies too much on its impressive face value presentation. The gameplay is far too poor on a multitude of degrees - the combat (or lack thereof), the walking distance between anything of interest, the lack of checkpoints, and the overall lacklustre game structure. The art direction is definitely an iota that will catch the interests of many, but many more will not be pleased with the game itself. Few Valkyries will be willing to recruit Thora as an einherjar, and very few players will enjoy the journey of Jotun.
Cross of the Dutchman holds true lore-wise, explaining the tale of Pier Gerlofs Donia, but as a video game, the hero falls flat on his face with crippled combat mechanics, bland gameplay progression, poor animation, and an overall lack of content and excitement. It needed a tremendous amount of extra work and polish. If this game was a sword, it would be a blacksmith's worst nightmare, or a laughingstock of poor craftsmanship. Ultimately, some stories are just better told in books.
The biggest problems are the brevity, lack of story, and overwhelming sensation it leaves that Frozenbyte released this unfinished and hopes to create DLC to finish it. That may or may not prove the case, but it remains difficult to like Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power when looking at the whole thing.
Does Beach Buggy Racing deserve a place in the games library? Yes, it does. It may not be Crash or Mario, but then it doesn't need to be. It's fun and quirky, it's something that can be played at any occasion, and can be taken seriously, too.
Goat Simulator is a hilariously fun game, especially in multiplayer, that will offer many hours of fun during late Saturday nights, but due to the severe number of bugs and issues, it's impossible to give Goat Simulator a high grade while keeping a straight face. It is a horrible game done horribly right, a game that is so bad it actually becomes a great experience, so long as players enter it with the right mindset.
Bungie has finally delivered something akin to promises it has made in the past. Destiny is still not the open-world exploration adventure everyone thought it was going to be, but it is carving its own path in the videogame world, and it's getting better and more fun with every step.
If, for some reason, the 50-100 hours of content in Pillars of Eternity were not enough for some people, The White March Part I will fulfil their needs. However, "expansion" seems like too generous a word for what it is. "Expansion" implies branching out into new territory; all this DLC does is cycle back for another lap in the same territory.
For the uninitiated into the grand strategy genre this might be a daunting order, but for those who are it's a wonderful entry that shines. Both full of detail and freedom and simple enjoyment. Its faults are few, though frustrating when they rear their heads, and it's much easier to find enjoyable, happy things in it than anything bad. A delight to play.
The zombie apocalypse isn't a world of fear, but a world of bores and chores.
It is very difficult to find anything nice to say about such a poorly made product, and nobody should be subjected to it, especially fans of Saint Seiya - avoid, without a doubt.
What replay value it has is dampened by how slow-moving Graham is and how cutscenes and bits of dialogue can't be skipped, but King's Quest begins a story anyone who plays it will want to follow through to the end.
On the whole, it's fair to say that most spin-offs are doomed to live in the shadow of their more popular source materials. Even so, Happy Home Designer did have the potential to stand on its own two legs - the sole ingredient needed to confirm that fact being the element of fun, which it sadly lacks. Everything is polished to a very typical high-gloss, Nintendo-brand sheen, but without any deep or meaningful gameplay system in place to bolster the charm, Happy Home Designer ends up feeling disappointingly shallow, with minimal longevity. Perhaps as an eShop game the effect would have been softened - at best, there are a few hours of enjoyment to be had, but the finished package lends little to the justification of a standalone release.
Sure, the replay value is somewhat disappointing, and, as a whole, this won't really threat the elites, but it's definitely on the right path for doing so.
The Astronauts made an interesting experiment with The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and while the team's attempt to tell some kind of tragic and emotional story is kind of effective, the overall gameplay, which serves as the grubby middleman that glues the whole tapestry together, is just not the hours wandering around in the Wisconsin woods. This probably would have made for a great novel instead of a video game.
While it's hard to find anything overtly enjoyable in the experience, Expand never feels like a complete waste of time. It's a tough game to explain on many levels. It's more of a platformer than anything else, or perhaps a puzzle game. It's not horrible, and it's not amazing.
It might take a bit to get started, and too many of the puzzles can be solved by accident, but there is enough here to make it worth a look even two years after its original release. It might have taken a while from the construction to finish up, but this is a bridge worth crossing.
At the current price, Dishonored: Definitive Edition is a complete rip-off and Bethesda callously thinks they can dupe their customers into buying such a lazy port of a fine game.
The price might seem high for how subtle or cosmetic these additions are, but many will likely find enough value in the overall strong developer support and thriving modding community to justify the cost, if the new layers of depth aren't enough for them.
D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die is such an unsatisfying adventure game due to it ending way before it even truly begins. All of the elements were in the right place for a worthy successor to one of the greatest cult surprises from last gen, thanks to Swery's ambitious creative choices and boldness to have stat management in an otherwise non-skill oriented genre. Sadly, all of these flourishes are painfully undermined because of the story's abrupt cliff-hanger that is not built up to. The way D4 leaves so many plot threads unresolved and with no proper climax is guaranteed to frustrate anybody who plays this. The future of D4 is very unclear if it will ever get resolution, and while there has been an announcement of a second season, there is no indication that it will conclude the story of David Young. This game is very hard to recommend because, while it is interesting and is not like anything else available, it is also a massive tease with no promise of satisfaction.
It's business as usual for Sledgehammer, who has once more delivered a solid package that both compliments and adds longevity to the vanilla Advanced Warfare experience. There is a minor concern that a fracturing of the player base between those that own the new DLC and those that don't has started to impact slightly on the matchmaking, as finding Exo Grapple matches has started to take longer than it used to. However, those invested in the Exo-Zombies storyline should enjoy getting to grips with 'Carrier,' and the welcome addition of a wisecracking Bruce Campbell to the fray is a good choice that bodes well for an explosive final chapter.