Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Reviews
I’m just far less interested in “two dudes who are creative musical forces have a falling out and weirdly obsess over each other for years” than I am seeing the semi-incestuous manoeuvrings of guitarists between different bands in one big music scene, as in Family. I feel like the relationship in Rivals is one that I have seen versions of a lot already, and one that gets talked about loads in real life all the time. The perpetual cycle of John and Paul.
Spelunky 2 makes Spelunky new again: a fancier strap, more cogs, a cuckoo popping out from a hidden compartment on the hour. The correct time, as delightful as the first time I learned to tell it.
I think the rules are still a bit too opaque for my liking. But they are, typically for Inkle, very elegant, and trust them to be the developers to weave them in with stories of knights and chivalry in such a neat way. Inkle are still better at story than strategy, though. I’ll beat Mordred one day. I just suspect it will take me a long while, is the only thing.
Iron Harvest is a throwback to one of the last golden ages of the genre, often feeling as old fashioned and crusty as that association entails, but frequently reminding us of the essential appeal of extremely large robots chilling out in timelines where they shouldn’t be.
Post Void is a masterpiece of compulsive motion and hypnotic, irresistible sounds. It does something to my brain that I’ve never experienced before.
Supergiant’s action roguelike was already a game of the year contender when it first came out in early access two years ago. It definitely is one now.
There’s nothing in the way of making me feel like I’ve become awfully clever at it all.
So yeah, it has more than a bit of roughness to it. But hoo boy, do I admire its spirit, its extra-ness, its enthusiasm for small-scale RPG design.
A tough but super stylish investigate ’em up that’ll have you dancing all the way to the murder trial. Probably through some blood from a ritual massacre. But that massacre was a legal one, you can ignore it.
It’s less dramatic than some of Dontnod’s other outings (and probably not for those with short attention spans given the pacing), but Tell Me Why remains a good entry in their the library of stories about families and sad magic – and it’s probably the most hopeful one yet.
I think I’ll need another year of playing it to work out exactly what I think of it. But that’s another way of saying I want to play it for a year, so it must be pretty good.
If I have to fight through listless combat, buggy UI, and an onslaught of juvenile gags to see one of the many endings, I’d rather leave the snowfields of Colorado behind. To hell with the consequences.
No Straight Roads feels like a less good version of Sayonara Wild Hearts, and if you want a rhythm action game I can’t really recommend the former over the latter.
Ultimately, everything in Spiritfarer is like that. Measured, thought out, detailed, kind.
Ultimately, Mortal Shell will make you want to headbutt your monitor out of sheer frustration. The puzzling nature of the map, the repetitive placement of enemies, the lack of options all coalesce into a big arm that holds the game back from being really good, to just good.
This is a good Total War game.
This shooty roguelike is delightfully weird, but its best characters are locked behind hours of gruel
Not the most innovative game in the world by any means, but one of the best adventures you can go on inside a telly, and one of the most beautiful, too – especially now that telly is a PC.
Much like crabs themselves, I am tremendously glad this game exists, but it’s something I’d rather appreciate at a distance.
The result, for me, was anxiety. A low background hum of “did I miss something”, combined with the high notes of being unable to find the next new area. It was enough to shade my entire experience with Carrion, turning a pleasant enough Metroidvania with a one-of-a-kind protagonist into something I felt like I was struggling to escape from.