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It probably goes without saying, but Hatoful Boyfriend is most definitely, 100% not for everyone. If you're looking any kind of serious gaming experience, want a mechanics-heavy title full of action and adventure, or just Aren't That Into Pigeons, Hatoful Boyfriend really won't be your cup of tea. However, if you want to experience what might just be one of the most ridiculous, hilarious, and extremely well-written visual novels this year, Hatoful Boyfriend brings the funny in spades. You might not know what on earth you're experiencing, but chances are you'll be thoroughly entertained.
Sadly there's a kind of crushing inevitability about this second season's climax and we'd be surprised if no one predicts the dramatic finale. We personally thought the pay-off was solidly presented, delivering a tense and emotional sledgehammer to the gut, but we're intrigued to see how the third season pans out given those difficult choices, which lead to one of four different endings (five technically, but two are basically the same).
Overall, The Journey Down: Chapter Two is an interesting installment that fans of the genre might want to look into. It is by no means a masterpiece yet, but with another part still in the works, there is definitely potential and room for development on an already a solid base. The characters are entertaining, the Afro-Caribbean setting intriguing, and the creativity in both voice acting and environment is a pleasure to participate in. While the narrative could be fleshed out a little more, the focus seems to be on building a puzzle oriented experience, and if you liked the first chapter or are a big fan of the genre, The Journey Down: Chapter Two is definitely worth looking into.
Overall, Sacred 3 is a fun and rather addictive game to play, even with its slightly repetitive nature. Although it is nothing new and brings nothing particularly mind-blowing or innovative to the table, it still lives up to the phrase "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
The world of Monochroma starts of promising a dystopian exploration in a silent and haunting world, but the lack of broader narrative or any kind of empathy leaves the world as devoid of life as the dystopia in which it is set. It's a world in which to dip your toes, and maybe even enjoy a short while, but it never really sticks.
We really wanted to like Gods Will Be Watching. The concept is brilliant, the scenarios are tense and the story is thought-provoking. But the combination of the random trial-and-error gameplay and the horrible bugs made us want to slit our wrists long before the conclusion.
Abyss Odyssey is definitely up there as one of the indie GOTYs so far, but it has its fair bit of clunkiness too.
Unrest is a solid RPG which at times shows flashes of brilliance and innovation, and would be a decent purchase for fans of this kind of experimental morality game. Those not already fans of the genre, however, may find this lack of polish prevents their conversion. Whilst Unrest is enjoyable, too often do its flaws get in the way of gameplay, frustrating enjoyment and creating a sense that this fascinating little indie RPG never really lives up to its potential.
The Swapper is a fantastic game although it's not without its limitations. The nagging feeling while working your way through the puzzles is that the idea was never really stretched quite far enough. The self-contained puzzles are good in their own right, but it can at times feel like a procession of challenges. It would have been nice to get to grips with multipart puzzles or something just a little meatier. For fans of the genre though this is invaluable, although it's all-too-short 4-hour length could leave seasoned puzzlers wanting.
In terms of the quality of this remake Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty is almost unrivalled. Just Add Water has gone above and beyond what fans of the series were expecting, and as a piece of fan-service it's second to none. It's the puzzle-platformer equivalent of remaking Baldur's Gate in Frostbite 3; a graphical and gameplay tour de force worth any fan of the genre's time.
[T]his is another nail-biting instalment that kept us hooked for its 90-minute play time (we completed it in one go, as with the other episodes in Walking Dead Season Two). We found our allegiances changing throughout, which kept us constantly on our toes, and the cliffhanger ending promises a bloody climax come part five.
All in all MouseCraft is an enjoyable enough game with a new if not wholly unique concept backing it up. While Crunching Koalas never seem to really stretch themselves with the puzzle designs, the additional elements added throughout do manage to keep things fresh throughout its 5-10 hour length.
But such trifling concerns really don't deserve your attention. This is a modern RPG classic that screams for your attention if you have even a passing interest in the genre. Clever, in-depth, engrossing and just utterly wonderful.
Blue Estate's biggest crime is in its failure to bring anything new to a genre that's barely been attempted for a decade. Many of its mechanics feel dated in comparison to 1998's The House of the Dead 2, which at least offer branching story paths and varied enemies to mix it up a little. If you go in expecting a rail-shooter and nothing more then it's not necessarily bad, but the impotent humour and monotonous conveyor belt of enemies grows old throughout its 3-4 hour length.
Some might feel uncomfortable with the slightly ambiguous ending to Cry Wolf, but to me it felt perfectly in tune with the overall tone of the series. Morality and Fabletown society in The Wolf Among Us is never a clear cut thing at any point in the series, and I worried that tying it all up in one neat fifth episode might prove too much even for the accomplished writing team of this game.
If we had to nit-pick, we'd grumble at the occasional bit of backtracking and the lethargic motions of the main character, but Whispering Willows had enough atmosphere and entertainment value to keep us intrigued.
GRID Autosport is the nearest we've come to a TOCA Race Driver 4 and its lineage shows. Varied disciplines, edge-of-the-seat racing, rampantly aggressive AI and a terrific sense of speed add up to deliver an effortlessly good racing game. What GRID Autosport lacks in flair it more than makes up for on the track and, while there's a certain Groundhog Day feel to proceedings, on a minute by minute basis Codemasters' racer excels.
It's not a perfect game, and there are a couple of small issues. But they really are small. I had two CTDs, and a few instances of Sniper Elite 3 freezing up for about fifteen seconds during the bullet cam. Once, I seemed to be unable to relocate, with the attention marker stuck on my player, despite the fact that I fled into a series of empty underground tunnels. The game relies perhaps a little too heavily on the 'OMG' tactic of dropping a tank into a level as a mandatory boss fight. But for everything that Rebellion has got right here, these are minor flaws. Sniper Elite III is so enjoyable because it's a stealth game done right.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War will certainly not be the most challenging game you play this year, but it is utterly absorbing, charming and a real experience for fans of puzzle and adventure games. Worth investing in for the soundtrack alone, it's an experimental title that - whilst it feels as if it could be a valuable educational tool for a younger audience - is still a mesmerising game for adventure fans of any age.
Transistor is a beautiful, absorbing and well thought out game that encourages you to get creative with its system and carve out your own approach to defeating your opponents. Want superb aesthetics, compelling backstory and tactically engaging gameplay? Look no further.