Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Reviews
Wreckfest is a splendid antidote to the po-faced severity of the current crop of Need For Speeds, Crews, and so on.
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy is a nearly flawless remaster of a mixed bag that I'm still incredibly fond of, even after so many deaths.
I've had such a blast playing it all over again, and desperately wish Volition would announce a new entry in the series that – unlike the follow-up Armageddon – is also set outside in a big open world.
Starman isn't big or brash, but sometimes you just need to sit quietly for a couple of hours and focus on something nice.
Right now, this is an awful lot of not very much.
Games that give us spaces to become familiar with have a special place in my heart and Far: Lone Sails has earned its place there. A game that offers us both a memorable journey and a place to call home. Of course, how much meaning can one have without the other? Far: Lone Sails gave me a wistful sense of both that I won't soon forget.
As much as I enjoyed learning the rules and rhythms of bus driving – thanks in part to the warm words of Mira Tannhauser – once that was done, I just couldn't find waters deep enough to swim in for long. On the other hand, Bus Sim 18 mostly smoothly (there are some bugs and performance issues, with patches planned) simulates what it sets out to simulate, and I don't for one moment regret experiencing that.
Mooncrash is an enormous paddling pool compared to Prey's Olympic swimming pool. There's none of the depth, but it's a heck of a good time to splash around in.
I don't want to bad-mouth cool dinosaurs, but cool dinosaurs can only carry a game so far.
My latest match was textbook CCG fun: I managed to barely scrape by in an unfavorable matchup, only to win at one health on the back of a few lucky top-decks on my end and two weak evolutions from my opponent. In that brief moment, I was over the moon about Shadowverse, and sometimes that's enough.
I'm left frustrated that Vampyr falls short of truly combining a smart choose-your-own-adventure game with a meaty action one.
think this has been my favourite episode because it went from “superhero bros on the run” to being more of a bildungsroman for Sean. And if it ramps up the psychic powers stuff from this point on, there will likely be less of that. Which would be a shame.
It's very charming, very beautiful, and both its comprising halves are enjoyable in their own ways.
I'm looking forward to the first opportunity I get to play with some humans in the physical world – and sad that their online counterparts aren't sticking around.
There's maybe a third of a good game in here, weighed down by a mountain of big and ambitious ideas, none of them given the time and attention they needed to really function.
I honestly can't remember the last time I've enjoyed a long-form point-and-click adventure this much. It reminds me why I love the genre so much.
It functions both as a broadly traditional but significantly less rigid MMO and as a 'lost' Elder Scrolls. There's much I wish it did better, but I can't fail to be drawn in by the sheer substance of it.
The Forest remains a huge achievement, and a survival horror game that somehow manages to keep those two elements surprisingly separate and yet let each impose upon the other in very interesting ways. I do wish it had been tidied and bug-fixed by now, but I can't stop wanting to play despite it.
If you play in co-op, you'll probably be able to ignore the flaws long enough to have a jolly evening or two with some friends (Windows 10 friends only, of course) and if you're dead set on rolling around in the blood and gore, I suggest this is how you play it.
Despite my (relatively minor) gripes, Red Embrace is actually a pretty enjoyable little game that doesn't take itself too seriously and delivers a well-proportioned slice of blood-sucking boy love.