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It has been over a decade since the masked hero has graced his own game, but Strider is back and better than ever. Double Helix has done a phenomenal job in bringing the futuristic ninja into the modern day by not only upgrading the visuals while maintaining the two-dimension plane, but adding an addictive and well-constructed progression structure to keep the campaign interesting.
Line of Defense Tactics looks like a mobile game, controls like a mobile game, and has all the gameplay depth of the most mindless time wasting mobile games. On phones and tablets where it's free and more suited to the platform, it's not a bad option, but on PC it comes up short in nearly every way.
NaissanceE was a game that I fell in and out of love with while playing. When first introduced to the industrial architecture, it seemed like such a cool landscape.
Not loving Jazzpunk is as difficult as classifying it. Few games are this confidently weird, and even fewer manage to pull off anything even resembling humour. If you're looking to laugh a lot, and maybe even think about stuff just a little bit, give it a play. If you're looking to be a jerk in a movie theatre from the comfort of your own home, the game will also cater to that need. It's weird that way, and apparently so are you.
There's an audience for Strike Vector, but that audience needs a lot of patience and a high tolerance for failure. It wants to beat you into the ground, and makes no effort to hide that fact.
One Piece: Romance Dawn is a great idea that was poorly executed. While fans and newcomers will appreciate the story, the gameplay feels like an afterthought. It becomes bland after mere hours and starts to feel like you’re going through the motions. This is not the reaction you want in an RPG, especially a long one like Romance Dawn.
Outlast made a splash when it first came to PC and became a favorite among scare cam Twitch streamers and YouTubers, and it will no doubt see a resurgence thanks the PS4's streaming capabilities. The reason Outlast was such a phenomenon is due to its great sense of atmosphere and tense gameplay, all of which is all present in the PlayStation 4 version.
Smoke and Mirrors is a solid continuation for The Wolf Among Us. A lot of seeds were planted in Faith, and while a few have borne fruit, most of this episode's running time is spent tending to them.
Consortium aims high, probably beyond the scope of what is reasonable for a game of this scale, but the experience is very enjoyable, if a bit short lived. Mechanically, there isn't much that's all that impressive, but from a storytelling standpoint, Consortium is a notable achievement.
It didn't take me long to realize that Loadout wasn't an ordinary shooter. It's an amalgamation of sorts, melding comedy, cartoon violence and competitive multiplayer seamlessly.
Though I feel incapable of giving Blackguards the fair shake it would get with fresh eyes, that's ultimately nobody's fault but the developer's. Early access works for emergent play – games like Rust and Starbound where no play session is the same and every update changes the dynamics – but it's ill-suited to more linear, directed experiences.
The Castle Doctrine has innovation oozing out of every pore. By combining well-developed puzzle design with massively multiplayer strategy, the game is simply unlike anything else on the market right now.
It’s a shame that the terms “masterpiece” and “genre-benchmark” are thrown around so haphazardly, because when a title that truly personifies those words like Bravely Default comes along, they seem cliche and hyperbolic to use.
Tomb Raider remains one of the better action games to have been released in the last twelve months, and it gives the next generation consoles some life in a rather dry time. This is without doubt the definitive console edition of Tomb Raider, but the completeness and subtle visual enhancements are not enough to warrant another playthrough.
Joking aside, there's a valuable comparison to be made between Broken Age and Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse. Both are throwbacks to the golden age of point and click adventures made by creators who helped define that era.
Nidhogg is a polarizing game. Experiencing it the way it's meant to be played (via local multiplayer) is a fantastically fun event.
Don't Starve is a fantastic, huge, deadly ball of entertainingly gothic survival. It requires a self-motivated player to get the most from it, but once you start to learn its systems, each game lasts a bit longer than the previous one, and the ability to experience more of the world reveals more secrets and avenues of exploration.
If you're getting tired of swords and sorcery, or just looking for meaty tactical battles, few RPGs will satisfy you better.
The PC port of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has its share of issues, but it still gets the nod over its console counterparts. While there are only six different resolutions, it does support native 1080p along with various graphical options that should have fans joyful just how sharp Raiden can look.
Whether you'll like this title or not is entirely dependent on your willingness to accept games that attempt to "say" something. Even agreeing or disagreeing that the point was sufficiently met isn't as important as the mindset one comes in with.