Cubed3's Reviews
Tormented Souls II is a sure thing for classic survival horror fans. It's a kind of game made for a very specific audience who's been starving ever since the sixth console generation. The puzzles have been ramped up and so has the survival gameplay, aiming to cater to players with experience in the genre. It may not be a true classic, but there's no going wrong with Tormented Souls II during the Halloween season.
Tenebris Somnia doubles as a great game for survival horror fans and film heads. It's wholly original and doesn't lean on its influences obnoxiously. Using filmmaking as a storytelling element while having beautifully shot FMVs is a stroke of genius. The intentionally minimalistic survival horror gameplay isn’t so simple that it loses its appeal, but rather, it emphasises the elements that made it great from the start.
Endless Ragnarok operates in a unique spot. While there is quite a bit of volume to the content, it is purely locked as a late-game expansion. It is not even accessible unless the player has beaten the first game, but it adds new characters, weapons, and other systems for the late-game boss rush. Ultimately while the combat can be fun, the grind and length of battles wears on a player, and the lack of any interesting character development or expansion story makes this a very limited niche of DLC.
It is neither fun nor easy to give such a low score to Hello Kitty: Party Land. For the most part, it is an amazing Mario Party clone that solves one problem few other games in the genre have tried to: how to live alongside the juggernaut. Short board playtimes let even busy parents play with their children, and the cooperative nature makes it fun for the whole family. With its high level of polish, this is a game one wants to recommend. However, the stick-rotation mini-game is, at the end of the day, a potential health hazard in a game targeted at young children, with potential legal issues down the line. Hopefully this problem gets fixed before launch.
Lunarium is an excellent game that comes very close to being an all-time classic. There needed to be less repetitive and tedious dialogue so as to let the visuals tell the story. The visuals are so impressive that developers should trust them and the players to connect the dots. If it had to rely on dialogue, some voice acting would have been appreciated. If it had a more rousing soundtrack and a hard difficulty mode, Lunarium would have been a masterclass action-adventure game.
Reka is really fun when it clicks, but it’s got some rough spots for sure. Fortunately, they don’t completely detract from the experience, and instead feel like odd idiosyncrasies. For fans of base builders, unique cultural representation, or exploration games in general, this is an easy one to recommend.
911 Dispatcher: Unknown Caller's saving grace is that it is technically a game about being a 911 dispatcher. Otherwise, it’s a very cynical piece of interactive media that is clearly trying to pilfer the audience for the almighty dollar. It’s not even a shame; it’s just head scratchingly obnoxious.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is a long-awaited return to form. Its campaign is one of the series’ best, DMZ is easy to get lost in, and multiplayer holds its weight through tactical and punchy combat. The Switch 2 port might not be as detailed and visually polished as the other versions, but it's a more than adequate way to experience an entry that feels like Call of Duty—and the FPS genre—at its peak.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is simultaneously a quasi-functional shooter with modernised adjustments and one of the worst remakes in recent memory. A title that misinterprets Bungie’s 2001 classic – narratively, mechanically, and aesthetically – in ways rarely seen to this extent. A confused gumbo of old and new ideas that highlight how abundant resources can't do much for something that feels so thoroughly soulless.
Halloween: The Game could've been awesome. It's too bad it's grossly unpolished, and its story mode is a lazily constructed, half-hearted attempt. The core game will probably get better with patches and updates, but it’s still doomed to face the inevitable service shutdown that tends to hit these kinds of games a year or two after release. If it had a substantial offline single-player mode, that would have saved it. Maybe this Halloween it’s better to spend it with Pinhead rather than Michael.
Has Nintendo finally recaptured the magic of Wii Sports, two decades later? Short answer: a resounding yes. Nintendo Switch Sports Resort doesn't reinvent the idea, but it serves a surprisingly content rich package with plenty of mechanical depth and content. The simplicity is still very much at its core, but there's a significant amount more nuance and refinement. Nintendo Switch Sports Resort is very much a game that anyone can enjoy, with room for competitive players to push further. Most importantly, it's a lot of fun!
Maestro is such a novel concept for a game and to get it working so seamlessly on Switch 2 is great for those who don't have access to the VR version. It's the kind of title ideally made for the platform and the Joy-Con. It uses them to great effect in delivering a simple but intuitive rhythm-action game. There are one or two hiccups when using the controllers in what is such a precise method of playing. But in most cases, it was so easy to get fully immersed into feeling like leading an orchestra that technical hitches faded into the background. Some more tracks or minigames to enjoy would have been good to freshen things up but there is a solid chunk of fun here and priced at just over £30, it's the kind of game that would be a cheap buy for parties and enjoying as a family.
Toy Story 3 Complete Edition is a sure-fire hit for any kid and maybe even a few grown-ups who are in touch with their inner child. While ideal for children, older audiences and seasoned gamers may find the core campaign and Toy Box quests to be boring. Aside from hunting down hidden collectibles, the game offers little gameplay depth or difficulty curve. It looks and sounds like Toy Story 3, even if the music is sleep-inducing, but this is still one of the better movie-to-game adaptations from the 2010s. Come for the story, but stay for the Toy Box mode.
Dog Man: Bark in Action is a great platformer for people with less experience in the genre. For those with a bit more platforming under their belt, though, it still manages to be a worthwhile genre inclusion, even if it doesn’t always feel particularly challenging. At the very least, it's an endearing and cute game that manages to evoke the basic reaction one should want from a video game: fun.
Silver Pines stands as a hauntingly beautiful, if flawed, love letter to the golden era of survival horror. While its central identity twist leans perhaps a bit too heavily on the well-worn tropes of Silent Hill 2, Memento, and Twin Peaks, the journey through this storm-ravaged mountain town is an absolute triumph of atmosphere. It suffers from some noticeable technical bugs and optimisation stutters, but the sheer mechanical tension of its clunky combat and punishing payphone save system keeps you entirely glued to the screen.
Steins;Gate Re:Boot opts for a middle ground of sorts between the original game and Elite. By using the latter as the script’s base, certain story details are brushed over, but the result is a more condensed novel that remains one of the best and most emotional in the genre. The redrawn art is lovely, especially on the portable Switch 2 screen, and the re-recorded voicework and new music help to deliver a little freshness. It’s difficult to recommend Re:Boot to anyone that has time travelled with Okabe before, though. The few narrative extras aren’t worth the price being asked for until a discount comes around. For everyone else, if Switch 2 is your preference and you’re in the market for a rollercoaster reading experience, this is a must-have.
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun II offers a fun, adrenaline-pumping excursion into the grim darkness of the far future. Once the beautifully rendered smoke clears, it becomes easy to see that beneath the glorious bloodshed lies a shooter that struggles to offer much beyond its basic premise. Encounters quickly become repetitive, levels are forgettable, and uneven balancing and uninspiring mechanics prevent it from reaching the upper echelons of the genre - and yet it manages to remain tons of fun despite all this. In conclusion: the bolter will roar, the Imperium’s enemies will turn into tasty paste, and the galaxy will once again be reminded of an Adeptus Astartes' thoughts on foreign policy.
At its core, One Piece: Grand Gourmet is an extremely niche title that will only appeal to two specific types of people: die-hard One Piece fans and fans of restaurant simulators. Anybody who fits into those categories will find countless hours of enjoyment with this cosy game, as it achieves everything it sets out to do, resulting in a surprisingly engaging experience that not only is brimming with content but also rewards players who are extremely knowledgeable about this long-running series. Despite a few minor technical issues (which will most likely be patched out soon), this is still a refreshing anime-based game that stands out from its competition.
Azure Striker Gunvolt Trilogy Enhanced is a love letter to the old-school game design philosophy of "less is more" replayability. The few levels in each of the three games hold up across multiple playthroughs without feeling dull or repetitive thanks to strong level design and solid gameplay. However, while this is an amazing handheld experience, its age and laser-focused handheld design show up in the worst ways on a big-screen TV: it feels busy and the graphics look a bit too blocky. However, this is definitely a title to recommend for those looking for a Switch 2 game to fill ten-minute gaps in their day-to-day life instead of doom scrolling online.
Playing Final Fantasy Resonance, one is repeatedly struck with the feeling of how much better the games it references are than this game. The sprites are absolutely awesome and the ‘job’ system is pretty cool, but that is about the limit of its good points. Combat is frequent, long, grindy and repetitive. The story goes nowhere, and it’s sad when the two-minute vignettes of the heroes from past games are far more interesting than the actual story taking place.