Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Reviews
What a really pleasant time this is. It’s family-friendly, without being a kids’ game.
I’d love to have played a game that tried to explore that rocky landscape, with some nuance, some introspection, and most of all, with some humility. This is not that game.
YIIK might have been able to get away with some of its issues if other areas were able to pick up the slack.
Bury Me, My Love isn’t, first and foremost, a treaty about refugee-ism: it’s a compelling and effective game about deciding what the hell to do next.
I love the ideas behind The Pepper Prince. A little queer love story, written in verse, presented in faux-ASCII. Sounds gorgeous. But on the evidence of the first episode, the verse is poor, the story meagre, and the puzzles absent. Which makes it hard to recommend. And yet, had I not winced and winced at the writing, I’d have enjoyed the aimless process of clicking through it all.
Largely, though, Catherine Classic is a pretty fantastic rerelease of a cult hit that people have nattered on about endlessly since its debut.
When you reach a milestone you get a moment of pure, unadulterated glory, but it’s fleeting, like craving a cigarette and quickly realising that nicotine is a chemical lie and cigarettes are shit. Progress feels so gradual as to be nonexistent, and can be instantly wiped out — but not in a calculated way like the difficulty of Dark Souls. In a sort of hopeless way. Each warrior is a tiny Sisyphus.
I’m really impressed by Sagebrush. It could have been tacky, it definitely could have been gross, but it’s neither. It’s sensitive, well constructed, and harrowing just where I think it should be.
Stumbling on other survivors is a thrill, but in reality those encounters rarely lead anywhere interesting. DayZ is an anecdote-generator, but the odds are you’ll need to feed it more hours of your life than they’re worth.
Honestly, this is purist FPS as good as it gets, just a constantly stunning game. Don’t miss this.
I think I’m having a good time?
A lighter souls, yes. But not a lesser one.
Fallout 76 feels like an atavistic reprisal of a late-2000s MMO.
I’m sort of cross with it! But also want to play it again! Because it might be the most stunning game I have ever seen! Argh!
I found Rage pretty hard work to enjoy. Much like the mercs themselves, for every positive trait it may offer, there tends to be some frustrating problem to deal with too. The combat is rarely all that enjoyable and a game that requires so much inventory management should do so much more to make that process appeal to the player.
A game of everything, a game of nothing. Eternal, unknowable, remarkable, infuriating, Kenshi defies easy judgement. Kenshi is. I implore you to play it.
There’s beauty to be found here, among the stars. But it’s going to take a more dedicated role-player than myself – or at least someone far more interested in systems for their own sake – to buy into this flimsy simulation for very long.
This remains the magical, bizarre, joyful and utterly peculiar game that earned its place in gaming history. It also remains very short (about four hours at a slow pace?), but also extremely replayable, with so many targets to meet. And it’s very funny, in a super-dark way.
I’ve missed out on Roller Coaster Tycoon and its descendants, so I can’t compare Parkitect to those games. What I can say is that it is delightful and non-threatening, and playing it has typically left me feeling pleasantly drowsy and contented, the way I might after wandering around a brightly-lit midway, munching a corn dog covered in mustard in a gauzy childhood memory of the carnival.
Ultimately, though, Dota and Artifact both appeal to me for the same reasons. Both can feel overwhelming and unfair, but both those feelings can be quashed with experience – at least, outside of the competitive modes. For now, those are the preserve of the wealthy – and a question mark on the game’s longevity for everyone else.