Paste Magazine
HomepagePaste Magazine's Reviews
Overall, I have some mixed feelings about State of Decay 2. It is a game that feels less focused than its predecessor despite making strong moves to deepen the experience in every realm. Focusing in on the details somehow made the game lose something; the steps the game took forward cost something fundamental and core to the experience.
The only problem with Dontnod being so good at what they do is that, sometimes, they're a little too good.
In the case of Seasons, it may be too little, too late.
Onrush is an experience that knows exactly what it is. It does not try to be more than a fresh take on the arcade racer, and in deftly juggling between joyous simplicity and skill-based complexity Onrush has quickly become one of my favorite games in recent memory. Just make sure you listen to anything but the game's soundtrack while you speed-boost your way through Onrush's all-too-familiar visual beauty.
And until then, the game is still solid enough to be worth a playthrough, especially at its price point and if you're a fan of VR. While I'm still not sure splitting the games into chapters was necessary, it works to provide a bit of a break between lengthy sections spent meandering through airspace, which helps ensure the game's main gimmick doesn't become too stale. Downward Spiral: Horus Station is drifting in the right direction, even if it sometimes loses its grip.
Whether you're a bullet hell aficionado who blasts through the main campaign in a few hours, or a fumbling novice preserving through each level by sheer luck, Just Shapes & Beats is the whole package.
It can feel faintly embarrassing one moment, and then do something unexpected and with surprising confidence just a few seconds later. There's probably an equal chance that you'll hate it or love it. In an industry that constantly obsesses on trends and often disrespects the taste and intelligence of its audience, Vampyr is as refreshing and anomalous as Dontnod's other cult games.
The story, mechanics, lore and aesthetic are all fantastic, but some simple tweaks, like improvements to the mission notes, would balance the crafting and survival aspects enough to make them less of an impediment to completion. That being said, whatever effort you put in to finish Smoke and Sacrifice will be worth it. It's flawed, but it's a step in the right direction for survival crafting games, and I hope to see others in its genre take the same initiative towards aesthetic and narrative in the future.
Runner3 adeptly balances pleasure and pain
Cage's ambitions might eventually overreach into bad taste, but even then Detroit still pulls off what every previous Cage game has failed to do. It tells a coherent, occasionally thought-provoking story that unites the interaction of videogames with the language of film.
Monster Prom is ridiculously fun and laugh out loud funny; I've been cackling like Edna Crabapple with almost every panel. I plan to play it a lot more even though I'm done with my review, which is basically the biggest compliment I can give a game these days. Whether you're a fan of dating stimula—er, simulators—or not, I highly recommend it.
It focuses on the minutiae of the world, from the detailed shop interiors that serve no purpose other than to ground you in the setting, to the nearby citizens who go about their daily business as anarchy unfolds around them in your wake. But perhaps the greatest feat of all is that the game trusts you, the player, to find it all yourself. By refusing to hold your hand and lead you from A to B, it gives you room to explore, to procrastinate and breathe between story steps, and it's in those moments of respite that you'll find the best of what the Yakuza series has to offer.
You never feel like an army, and that's to the game's benefit. This isn't a game about a war, even though it is set against the backdrop of one. Battletech is a game about battles, in all their sad and joyous desperation, and the machines that they so lovingly destroy.
The story's biggest problem is that it attempts something that can't really be done. It tries to rehabilitate that which cannot be rehabilitated. This Kratos is the same Kratos who was pure animal lust for a half-dozen games, driven solely to kill or sleep with every living creature he came across.
Dead In Vinland scratches the same itch as Darkest Dungeon's less combat-focused parts and King of Dragon Pass's more personal moments. It's unique in the world of games, and it shows what the medium can do when it's committed to a distinct vision of what numbers-and-narrative can do when they're understood as intertwined and integral to one another.
Minit is an adventure with a twist—an adventure that turns into work, and a twist that turns into as much of an anchor as any unfulfilling day job.
Detective Pikachu may be for elementary school kids (my dear Watson) but it's still a welcome addition to the extended Pokémon spin-off universe.
I'm in a weird place because I know that Surviving Mars is probably excellent for someone who is not me. If you enjoy Paradox games like Crusader Kings II but not city builders, then this is probably a great bridge for you to relax and play. If you like managing numbers, resources, and people, then this is the game for you. What I wanted was a more freeform experience that allowed me to design and fiddle with Martian landscapes to my heart's content, and this is not the game for that.
At its best, The Fall Part 2 feels more humanist and tactile in its approach to discussing self-preservation and how such desires lead to the defining of one's self.
If you commit and dig in, you'll be rewarded with that rare feeling of accomplishment in a videogame. Not because you leveled up or because you managed to get one over on the game, but because the puzzle feeling of Into The Breach makes the game appear to be extremely fair. I never feel like I've been tricked when I lose, and I never feel like I've done something out of bounds when I win.