Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Reviews
You're going to love it.
Shelter 2 has a memorable visual identity and a considered soundtrack, but in terms of survival and a rewarding exploration of the space there's just not much there.
I'd tell you if the changes are sufficient to justify a purchase but I shat it on the second night and uninstalled.
It's very simple to complete, and your interaction with the world is fairly primitive. And yes, sliding tile puzzles. But it also has a deeper story and much darker tone than you'd expect from the casual market... I rather enjoyed it.
Oscura is probably a good fun platform game with little originality, underneath its frustrations. But just now, those frustrations are covering it up too well.
I'm not sure the Homeworld games were first built with the expectation that they'd stand the test of time like this, but because there was so much care, because there's been nothing quite like them since, and because the remastering has been sensitive, this package comes across as beautifully timeless, and as essential as real-time strategy gets. Welcome home.
What makes Hand of Fate so very special is that it does very successfully bring one very human emotion to bear: hatred. I'm gonna give you what for, Australian Raistlin.
Everything is stripped away, leaving two coaches to duke it out over a weird looking ball. It's how robots would design a sport if, you know, they actually liked sport. Just the bare essentials, all purity and rawness with simple rules, simple tools and a clear objective. It's a game that, at a glance, you know how to play. And you should probably go and do that.
Don't underestimate how clever and how careful Evolve is, and just how many deeply different elements it genuinely manages to balance. But sadly that's not backed up by a huge amount of personality.
With such a light story and relatively sparse worlds the game needed its combat to feel polished in order to shine. Sadly the unwieldy controls mean it's an interesting-looking game which never quite delivers.
Look, Sunless Sea isn't for everyone. It requires patience, and it requires no small amount of imagination. For those who have those qualities, or are prepared to try and acquire them, I would say that Sunless Sea is an uncommonly rewarding roleplaying game, and an essential one.
Take your time, play with the flora and fauna (although be careful, it's not all friendly), search out the gems (some are cunningly hidden), and enjoy taking your time. This isn't a game to rush, but to wobbily savour.
I'm sticking with Game of Thrones, but I'd definitely appreciate some changes to the pacing. I.e. calm down! Sure, feel free to maim and kill anyone anywhen, but give me a chance to look around a little first, won't you?
Icons on the minimap don't match those on the main map. Characters piss mid-conversation. The jump barely functions. There's just nothing redeemable here. Frankly, it's damned rude to release a game in this state.
Like the best open world games, it's a factory for anecdotes and you'll create plenty of gems in its company. That's worth celebrating, no matter how derivative the various machines in that factory might be.
The Remastered edition might not be quite as modernised as we'd hoped, and it's sorely in need of a little more PC-specific TLC, but it is such a pleasure to have it back, so much happier on a modern monitor and good speakers than the original edition, and with non-crazy controls too.
If you're looking for a game to soothe your twelve-week-old snot-ridden baby to sleep at 5.30am, I can recommend nothing more highly. My boy stared at it like it was made of magic, and eventually drifted to blissful sleep. It's hard to deny this biases my opinion of the game quite significantly.
It's a comfortable game, lots to do, very silly, definitely fun to play. But it's also sitting still, putting its feet up, rather than surprising us with something delightfully new.
If you've never played the remake at all, it's worth visiting the mansion again just to meet Lisa Trevor, and if you've never played Resident Evil at all, now's the time. It's a slice of cultural history that has exerted enormous influence but has mostly avoided direct imitation. When something is this well-crafted, the flaws of a counterfeit are obvious.
Most of the game is about painfully slowly walking your paper person to the next glowing spot on the ground, and pulling at the big glowing circle that appears, then painfully slowly walking back again.