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"We in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin'." Those words, spoken by Lt. Aldo Raine in Inglorious Bastards, summarize the Wolfenstein experience in a nutshell — a grossly bloody, partially dismembered, nutshell.
Though it's got many of the building blocks for my ideal prison game (is that a weird thing to have?), 1954: Alcatraz is a disappointment. A few great ideas are drowned in a torrent of design flaws and technical problems.
Titanfall is a flawed game that winds up being greater than the sum of its parts. Even counting both sides of the campaign together, it's quite short.
Perhaps what is most disappointing is that Thief does its best to make you believe that there's more to it beneath the surface, and you'll drudge through much of its mess with that glint of hope. That isn't the case, though, as it's very much a "take it as it is" experience, and if you're willing to do so you'll find that it just might steal some time from your weekend.
The weirdest thing about Windforge is that it is full of potential but chips away at it due to its unpolished nature. Slightly unorthodox controls, menus with a bit more clicking required than necessary, and less than optimal building conditions tone down what could easily be a critically acclaimed experience.
Year Walk is a surprising game. The name reveals little and leaves you room to fill in what exactly is going on and why for much of the journey.
Awesomenauts was an easy recommendation before, and with the addition of new characters and other improvements, Assemble! is a must-have both for those who haven't experienced the game and veterans who want to play the best possible console version. Anyone who enjoys run and gun shooters or action platformers will enjoy this, and it's a perfect gateway game to the MOBA genre.
Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy doesn’t stray too far from the formula, but that’s a good thing for the most part.
While the season two debut failed to capitalize on the suspenseful tactics Telltale Games was able to integrate in the first season, Episode 2 has fixed that. It's still a bit shorter than what we've grown accustomed to and the zombies feel tacked on rather than an actual story driven threat, but the hour and a half long episode is able to convince us that the drama within the group of survivors is much deeper than first expected.
In the end, Dragonfall is a more complete and sophisticated version of last year's Shadowrun Returns. The new campaign setting is utterly compelling, the writing is some of the industry's finest with astounding prose and character development and the added content simply equates to an experience that is only rivaled by the genre's best.
If you somehow have avoided Resident Evil 4 for this long, you may as well just get it over with and play the Ultimate HD Edition. The updated PC version is by far the one to get as the buttery smooth frame rate, true high definition resolutions and refined textures only add to the immersive experience.
Basement Crawl is a reasonably-priced, well-made game lacking the features to make it a must-have. It simply doesn't offer enough as a multiplayer-only game to fully recommend as a purchase to anyone other than folks who are dying for Bomberman on the PS4.
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.