Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Reviews
The Witness is one of the most fulfilling games I've played in yonks and it accomplishes a rare feat. It's varied, playful, elegant, mysterious, challenging, and intensely focused all at the same time.
American Truck Simulator is a simulation of driving a truck across America, and while it can claim many successes in terms of mechanical authenticity, its most effective simulation is state of mind. That zen-like focus and calm of driving, when every other worry evaporates from your mind. Only the road. Only the music. The music and the road as one.
I've admittedly not gotten an enormous way into the game, because good gravy, no one would want to. But it's been a tortuous, buggy, and most of all, deeply uninteresting slog. If a sudden delight were to arrive around the next corner, it wouldn't have been worth the effort of getting there.
It's a likeable game, and it feels fantastic to play when you nail an extended combat encounter with a chain of flawless shots, deflections, rolls, slides and aerial skull punches. It can be a touch imprecise, especially when trying to time a shot while rolling or throwing an explosive, but sometimes your failures can be just as entertaining as an unbroken display of acrobatic death.
There's loads to do in Lego Marvel Avengers, but only when you've found it. And of course the animation is well done, the ridiculous amount to collect relatively compelling, and if your kid 100%ed Marvel Super Heroes, then this will likely give them a new fix. But it's a despondent entry in a series that perhaps TT are finally beginning to grow tired of making.
XCOM 2 is an improvement on its predecessor in every way and the vast majority of those improvements have been applied so intelligently that they risk making Enemy Unknown obsolete. That game was a smart remake of a classic. XCOM 2 is a classic in its own right and as good a sequel as I can remember.
When all of the rising was done, she still felt like a heroine in search of a setting and plot that draw on her strengths rather than her struggles, and for all that forward momentum the game is a spectacular journey that fails to reach a fulfilling destination.
You'll cry. And cry and cry and cry. But I think you'll love it.
In fact, if you've looked at the screenshots, read this, and thought, "Goodness me, John's an idiot," then this is the game for you! I can't tell you where it goes in the later puzzles (there are 60 in total), as they unlock one at a time.
Were it built with more skill, with a greater flow of movement and one hell of a graphical upgrade, and then given a dose of writing that wasn't horribly reminiscent of its sister show, this could have been quite the thing. And yet, I enjoyed myself at moments, before wearying of its weaknesses toward the end. Fascinating that it came this close.
Deserts of Kharak does manage to be standalone as well as prequel to an old series, and if you're tired of the twitchy frenzy which grips so many latter-day RTSes, Kharak is a smart and beautiful destination whether or not you still dream of Hiigara. It might be set on land, but by recent RTS standards it's nonetheless reaching for the stars.
There are so many smart ideas in here, and the concept is neat, even if obviously derivative. But the execution doesn't hold it together, with disappointing responses to extremes, and a strangely anticlimactic progression. I feel like if this were given another six months, the game could be as interesting to play as it is in ambition. But as it is, it's not there.
Oxenfree was an unexpected delight for me. Atmospheric, beautiful and with the ability to feel real connections between its characters.
What it offers though is a solid combat system backed up with enough different flavours, little moments of triumph, pats on the head and surprises amongst the very, very quickly familiar terrain to be compelling, like a big bowl of popcorn sprinkled with chocolate.
The thin storyline around it is entirely superfluous, I'll admit to tiring of the spaceship looking identical every single time I play and it's fair to say there's less motivation to keep on going back once you finally beat it, but even if you only get a few days out of it, right now the price is right.
That Dragon, Cancer is an important game because it tries, but not because it succeeds.
It'll keep you busy for a long damn time too, even if you only play it once – though, of course, for many there'll be later playthroughs in co-op or at at unlockable higher difficulties. I think it's the (admittedly presumed) desire to be the spiritual sequel to Diablo II which holds me back from heaping breathless praise on Grim Dawn, though.
[T]rust me, pick this one up.
It feels like a game which knows exactly what it wants to be. And like a game which someone really, really wanted to make.
What's such a shame about the puzzles, beyond those which are simply bad (not very many, but gosh, they're bad), is that what it doesn't do is let you move around the world. And that's even more strange when the transitions between puzzles are the camera swooping down streets and through doors between one and the next, so there was definitely a world built in which one could have moved about.