Cubed3's Reviews
Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Editions on Switch is incredibly dense. These are enormous and very long journeys to experience, and they have a substantial initial barrier to them that might put off newcomers.
The Eyes of Ara is a fascinating journey through a haunting castle, that hides many secrets within its walls. The meat of this experience is to explore the various rooms and interact with every object or journal entry to decipher clues for solutions to the puzzles.
Charming, original, and terrifically paced, Tangle Tower is a strong contender for the best point-and-click adventure of 2019. Puzzles require real wit without bogging readers down with irrelevant information. Each screen is filled to the brim with detail, blending colour and lighting into a living, breathing tower. Only a few hours long with a gripping mystery at the centre of its plot, Tangle Tower is a must play for fans of the genre.
It's not often a racing game comes along and hits the sweet spot between simulation and arcade, and yet that is exactly the balance that the developer haσ hit with GRID. Fantastic, speedy chaotic, gameplay, supported by some great visual and sound design, giving racing fans of all levels and abilities another great title this year worth diving into with gusto. Totally recommended to genre aficionados, especially after the inevitable split-screen update.
Little Big Workshop's biggest flaws are its generic character designs and a few control issues, but these are greatly overshadowed by how fun this is.
With developer Gust's unexpended expansion to their most favoured sub-series, comes what can be considered the best in the Atelier set to date. Casting away previous conventions to introduce new, more enriching characters, and world-building structures, Atelier Lulua's challenge spikes and lack of English dub does little to take the shine off the gem beneath.
While the experience is not an entirely negative one, it leaves little to enjoy when problems start coming up. The charming atmosphere and stylization lends itself well to being a sort of survival-lite adventure for a younger audience; the quests are straightforward; and, finally, the difficulty is forgiving. Those looking for an exploration game will find frustrations abound in this title, and unfortunately the design choices lead to a rather disappointing experience as a whole.
It is usually easy to make comparisons with other games. Something along the lines of "if you liked this or this, then you'll like this as well." That isn't so easy for Superliminal, because there are simply no others like this. That's what makes this such an easy recommendation.
It's certainly not a game for those that love fast-paced action, but for anyone wanting to take the time to appreciate the world around them, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a good choice.
This is a contemplative odyssey that is ultimately a story about the triumph of the human spirit in spite of entropy.
They Are Billions does a lot of things great. The survival twist of a city-builder is unique, and lots of fun. Dealing with the huge waves is always as fun as it is stressful, including the huge final waves. Things that hold the game back are difficulty playing a computer game on console controls, and various UI and graphics issues as well as slowdown. This being said, it's a solid and unique RTS title.
Death's Gambit is a substantial entry into the souls-like genre, even if it is very derivative. Some of the ways it was "inspired" by Dark Souls feel a bit dangerously too close at times. It does enough to make itself unique, and it does bring some new ideas to the table that will absolutely tickle fans of this genre. Don't expect Hollow Knight levels of polish or content; this is more closer to Salt and Sanctuary in terms of quality, but with a more refined art style.
The Switch's catalogue of Metroidvania titles was already impressive - though ironically it's still lacking an actual Metroid - and now its ranks have been bolstered by one of the best in recent memory. Ori and the Blind Forest is an absolute masterpiece, a beautiful story polished to perfection in both its artistic design and core gameplay mechanics. The utterly beautiful presentation and soundtrack crafts a charming and memorable world and there are more stories in that world to come as Ori and the Will of the Wisps landing on Xbox One in a few months. Hopefully, the Switch version comes shortly after.
WRC 8 is a fantastic leap forward from WRC 7, with a revamped career mode for aspiring drivers to sign a team, manage crew members and level up skill trees to become the best team in the dirt-rallies.
It's hard to stick with Legend of the Skyfish. Even clocking in at only around 2-3 hours for the 45 stages, it's easy to get bored with the game around the halfway point when it becomes clear that it has already shown all it has to offer and just repeats the same types of puzzles and gameplay.
A carefully crafted farewell letter to DJ Tim Bergling, AVICII Invector is a perfect way to immerse yourself in his music, as players travel across a colourful futuristic setting to a high energy soundtrack. It can be difficult to find and master the button pressing rhythm on the harder difficulty settings but, eventually, over time, it becomes more manageable and like second nature.
Forget the fact that Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York is a visual novel, as it really knows what the setting is all about. From the world, to the characters, to the absolutely fantastic setting and handling of the franchises deep lore, this is really a Vampire: The Masquerade game done right, and one that's highly replayable. There are a few flaws here and there, like how forgettable the plot at hand is, or how the paths don't diverge as much as one would want them to, but this is such an engrossing, and deeply atmospheric experience that it doesn't really matter.
It looks good (mostly), and has all the qualities that seem like it would make a great game. Not only does it fail to come together coherently, yet it also it lacks a sense of magic or "heart" that the art style would suggest it possesses. While nothing is largely technically wrong with Indivisible, it fails to be engaging as a RPG, its platforming fails to recommend it on this front, and the story never goes anywhere significant to offer this up either. This isn't bad, but it just isn't that good either.
Nearly flawless, Planet Zoo is a masterpiece of tycoon simulation, and is one of the most relaxing, engaging, and fantastical pieces of entertainment of 2019. It's a showcase of fun mechanics, and it really draws from the wealth of experience in Frontier Developments as a developer. It's impossible not to recommend this to anyone who has even a passing notion about the genre. Get this!
Fractured Minds is a beautiful experience, and by no means should any complaints from this end diminish that. While it won't be everyone's kind of game, it is something anyone looking for something a little different should try out. Furthermore, if you suffer from anxiety, or even more important perhaps, know someone who does, this is a gorgeous realization of what it's like to suffer. In short, Emily Mitchell, keep making games, cause if this is any indication of what you can do, the industry definitely needs your voice.