Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Reviews
Kelvin is one of the most competent and solid adventures I’ve seen in forever, without resorting to the intrinsic nastiness that imbues too much of the output from developers like Daedalic. It looks just lovely, a bold and distinct cartoon style that’s something I want to see more of.
Abzû is a beautiful game. It's a game stuffed with fish and colour and movement and music. I love those things. Sometimes you feel like you're actually inside an episode of Blue Planet (I recorded the video above during one such moment). But I don't love wrestling for control of an experience which feels expansive one moment and restrictive or unpredictable the next.
Games are capable of ridiculous, absurdist stories. This is not one of them. Games are capable of intense, character driven dramas. This is not one of them. They are capable of being sexy, which this isn’t. They are capable of being funny and respectful and human. Muv-Luv is none of these things. It is flat, and it is tedious, and it is often gross as hell.
Headlander’s hugely charming, basically, and though it doesn’t run too far with the humour of its concept, it absolutely makes the gimmick work from a play point of view. It’s got more steam in its engine than other recent, similarly high-concept Double Fine endeavours too, working hard to stay vibrant throughout.
It feels as if Quadrilateral Cowboy never finds a solution to this problem, but it moves through different ideas quickly enough, and does enough with its cool, colourful world and story of silent friendship, that I enjoyed my time with it.
It’s by no means the best Zero Escape game, but it’s a fitting end to the trilogy’s story arc and – animation aside – it’s an excellent way to spend a few evenings.
Human: Fall Flat is unquestionably charming, and tremendous fun when it’s not annoying me so much I want to find the developers and put staples in their toes.
Despite my sense that this chapter is not quite the equal of those before it, it is entirely unmissable if you have played those, still as beautiful and unpredictable and as forlornly romantic as ever, and this time it shows me at least two places I wish I could go and live in forever. And though some water may be overtly trodden this time, be in no doubt that things are moving towards a conclusion.
I find it difficult to picture the person who wouldn’t enjoy Starbound. Parts, sure, but the whole is this sincere, incredibly ambitious sandbox that’s as full of charm, and space-faring pirate penguins, as it is stuff to build and places to explore. And whatever you do, if you decide to add this digital galaxy to your collection, make sure to blackmail some friends into picking it up.
Those golden-era JRPGs are beloved because they were packed with memorable locations, characters, and combat. I Am Setsuna unfortunately falls short on all three counts, and instead delivers an average and forgettable adventure, albeit one with wonderful music.
It’s a clumsy, dull, shallow, lacklustre trudge through cold soup. And fails at the most important aspect of any game in the genre: making me want to have another go.
Even without acknowledging the unusually huge difficulties Kiro’o faced in getting it released at all, Aurion suffers a major blow but stands up as an original, memorable, and rewarding game that deserves every success.
It’s wildly derivative, which is such a peculiar thing to see from such a developer, but I’m glad it exists. It’s just… well, it’s fine.
It’s clever for all sorts of reasons, but the most smart aspect is its recognition of your passivity in the role of a visual novel player, and making that the most crucial part of the story is telling. It’s a chilling thought, spending less than an hour losing thirty years from the lives of everyone you know, and while I think the game does crucially badly fail to give the feeling that three decades have passed for the people you follow, the ten years or so it far more feels like has just the right effect of alienating distance and discomfort.
Replica is a strong concept played out a bit too broadly for its own good, but it’s just smart – and certainly timely – enough to get away with it.
Clearly others are adoring this, so read around. I certainly will be now to try to work out what on Earth was going on last week. But I completely didn’t get this. It has a few decent puzzles, all of them boringly repeated. It looks lovely, when it remembers to, but mostly doesn’t.
The Chernobyl VR Project is meaty and ambitious, and definitely sets a precedent for this sort of thing: armchair tourism taken to a whole new level, and especially valuable when it works hard, as this does, to educate as well as stimulate.
Even at its worst, Furi is something rather special.
It’s fun, spooky, peculiar, unique, and most of all – and I use this word very carefully – interesting. That’s something games too often are not. The Room Two unquestionably is – a properly interesting experience.
‘Better’ isn’t the correct operative term, I think. ‘Different’ is, and honestly, that’s exactly what I wanted from DLC – a good reason to play through XCOM 2 again. As a total package, it’s substantial, even if not the equal of the Enemy Within expansion for XCOM 1