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Chambara is a smart, stylish, and truly entertaining game to play locally with friends and family. There's a timeless class to games of this ilk which offer experiences that you simply cannot get elsewhere. As long as you can provide a steady stream of willing players to engage with, Chambara returns the favour with a limited but excellent selection of arenas to engage with them in.
ABZÛ is a triumph of exploration and atmosphere. Its gorgeous underwater playgrounds are a joy to explore thanks to its perfectly tuned controls, awe-inspiring visuals, and beautiful sound design. A somewhat predictable story does little to hamper what is otherwise an utterly unique and rapturous experience.
When it's obsessing over the broken politics of Gotham, this alternate take on DC's most famous franchise promises plenty – but lacklustre heroics and writing inconsistencies really drag it down. There's reason to be excited by some of the fictional deviations that the developer's taking, but they're yet to manifest themselves in any meaningful way, and the overemphasis on tired series tropes will draw many a groan. It's obviously too early to determine where this story is going to go, but our biggest concern right now is that Telltale isn't entirely sure either.
Brut@l is a fun dungeon crawler regardless of whether the historical significance of collecting letters and throwing the @ sign at goblins is lost on you. A distinctive visual style complements simple and enjoyable combat, a satisfying collection of craftable weapons, and a rewarding learning curve. Dungeon runs can get a bit samey, but a co-op mode and robust dungeon creator reward further visits.
Heart&Slash has some enjoyable moments. The weapon and armour unlocks coupled with the randomly generated levels will keep you coming back, but ultimately, the experience is let down by unfair encounters and repetitive combat. It's a quirky combination of roguelike and brawler that will leave fans of either genre disappointed.
Aside from a few minor presentation and performance niggles, Overcooked is a wonderfully executed game, and is one of the best co-operative experiences in recent years. The simplicity of the controls and gameplay make it extremely accessible, while there is still plenty of challenge in the later, crazier kitchens. Working together effectively with a few buddies feels fantastic, and even when things get a bit heated, it's all part of the fun. If you're looking for a light-hearted couch co-op game, Overcooked should definitely be on your menu.
To put it simply, Hyper Light Drifter is incredible. Lovingly wrapped in a distinctly retro shell, the title fires on all cylinders. An intriguing, abstract narrative set in one of the most beautifully vivid world's we've ever seen helps provide a near flawless experience. Add in great combat and controls as well as an amazing soundtrack, and the end result is easily one of this year's must-plays. Its difficulty may scare away some, but for all who can cope, the experience is a truly rewarding one.
Videoball is a classy and low cost game that is manic fun in multiplayer and an okay grind in single player arcade mode. Don't let the simplistic looks put you off – have some balls and fire this up at your earliest convenience.
It's a testament to the excellence of Headlander that it can only be faulted for its slight technical flaws. Everything about it is so finely tuned, from its gunplay to its platforming to its puzzles, and it doesn't just stay true to classic Metroidvanias – it also builds upon the foundations that they laid. The story is well told, the characters are entertaining, the environments are fleshed out, and the humour is as brilliant as always. Headlander's one of the best games that Double Fine has ever produced.
Moon Hunters is certainly an ambitious idea from Kitfox Games, and for the most part it hits the right notes. There's an interesting world and story on show that complements the unique, randomly generated areas, enjoyable combat, and personality trait mechanics, so it's unfortunate that its constant attempts to promote replayability cause things to fall a little flat. And, with only four different endings to discover, it's quite possible that you'll only be spending four or five hours with the release, which is disappointing, as the title's universe feels ripe for immersing yourself in.
Tricky Towers is a good romp when playing local multiplayer with friends – the floppy physics add tension (both literally and metaphorically) and the spells make the gameplay interesting and dynamic. The gameplay suffers quite a bit in single player, though, and even though the price is cheap, the game does wear thin eventually.
Vault-Tec Workshop is Fallout 4's best settlement DLC, but that won't mean much to those who don't enjoy building settlements to begin with. The often comical experiments that you can subject your dwellers to offer a few hours of fun, and the add-on provides loads of new items and structures to work with, but at the end of the day, we're glad that this marks the end of the game's Workshop offerings - we're just not convinced that Fallout 4 needed so much premium crafting clutter.
Boring is not an adjective you expect to use when talking about an arcade racer, but somehow Carmageddon: Max Damage manages to be so tedious that you'll struggle to keep yourself interested enough to see out all of its events. The disappointing car handling, aimless AI, and basic visuals all come together to make a real clunker, which even with its few interesting aspects, doesn't come close to being classed as roadworthy.
There are some interesting and well-implemented ideas here that make Obliteracers stand-out, but it gets drowned out amid the rest of the game which more often than not fails to make use of its unique mechanics and relies on generic tropes that have been better implemented elsewhere. There's still some fun to be had in a spare 30 minute session alone, and it excels when played with friends – but on the whole it fails to provide enough depth and variation to keep the average player Obliteracing after the initial taster.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme VS-Force is at its best when it sticks to the series' trademark two-on-two battles. Smaller encounters give the tense combat system room to breathe, but all too often, the game's campaign shoots itself in the foot with overly chaotic group skirmishes and boring boss fights. If you're a Gundam nut then you'll probably be able to stomach some of the title's flaws, but don't expect a true Gundam VS experience.
Shameless like a boob tube but about a billion times less interesting, Gal*Gun: Double Peace is a bad rails-shooter that tries tirelessly to get a raise, only to leave you feeling limp and agitated. If firing pheromones in the faces of overly appreciative schoolgirls is the kind of thing that turns you on, then consider giving Net Nanny her marching orders instead.
Adr1ft is by no means a bad game, but it comes with a few key caveats. Its opening hour is fantastic, as you begin to piece together what has happened and perilously search for the next oxygen canister, but it's the back half of the game that severely lets this intergalactic adventure down. And despite the story and its setting being so intriguing, it's not enough to paper over the glaring flaws present.
There is an awesome world that has been built here, with so many interesting characters and areas to explore, but poorly thought out gameplay makes Dex a dull affair. Melee combat has no nuance to it, weapons control too poorly to be of any use most of the time, and hacking is repetitive and bland. There is real promise here in the world building and character development, but the terrible gameplay is too much to make up for.
I Am Setsuna capably fulfils its role as an echo of past Japanese adventures, but in doing so, it seems unwilling to take risks and forge its own legacy. Its story is predictable and its battle system struggles to define itself, but its traditional charm and fantastic atmosphere do more than enough to ensure that this an inviting and thoroughly pleasant journey. It may not measure up to the genre's best, but Tokyo RPG Factory's first outing is a warm and well crafted reminder that the classic formula still works.
Roger Ebert once famously opined that video games are not art, and Ghostbusters is Exhibit A for his case. This is not art. It barely qualifies as a game. Sure, it's not broken like some games are. It's functional. It works. But there's no risk, no ambition, and not a trace of anything resembling the personality of the Ghostbusters movies or cartoons. This is a game that seems like it was made with the specific purpose of tricking parents who don't know any better into buying it for their kids.Who ya gonna call? The Samaritans, probably.