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Taken by itself, 'Cold Darkness Awakened' is not a particularly convincing reason to purchase 'Rise of the Tomb Raider's season pass. For those who already own the pass, it’s not a bad way to spend an hour or two, but it probably won’t offer much more than that. It doesn’t offer enough freshness or gameplay to justify a separate purchase.
While 'Sadame' isn't a bad game at all, it feels like a particularly hollow one. The game has promise, but it all gets squandered on combat that's too simple and dull for its own good. For $15, the quantity of content is impressive, but despite the good ideas present, 'Sadame' doesn't have nearly enough variety or challenge to ultimately make it feel worthwhile.
There is an audience out there for 'Killer Is Dead', certainly; but that audience is only going to be the most diehard fans of Suda51's work. The game is wrapped up with a wonderful art style and some good voice work and music, but the stilted, nonsensical storytelling is bound to drive away a lot of the audience that would care to enjoy it. Add in the repetitive nature of battling, which only really shines during certain bosses, and 'Killer is Dead' can be both too monotonous and spontaneous to fully enjoy. Unless you're a huge fan of the likes of Suda51's laster action titles, stay away from 'Killer Is Dead.'
'Minecraft: Story Mode - Assembly Required' came so quickly after the first that I can't help but wonder if it was rushed. Parts of it seem that way - the duration, the weaker script, the lack of entertaining interactions. It's almost as though the episodes were created by different people. It's still early in the season though, and Telltale has some time to pull it together.
They don't make them like they used to, and in the case of 'Toy Soldiers: War Chest', the result is a bland, paid freemium game that falls short of the series' own benchmarks. It is an action/strategy title that doesn't have much of either and can be safely passed over by all but the most forgiving tower defense fans.
Every version of 'Duels' over the years has been fun, but has been missing something - a deck builder, an ergonomic interface, etc. This year's iteration, 'Magic Duels: Origins,' is missing several of them and is a skeleton of 'Magic' draped in the fool's gold of the free-to-play model. Perhaps Stainless can use it to build something really cool in a few years' time, with lots of modes and cards and avenues of play. As it is, it's hardly worth playing even with its asking price of free.
'The Deadly Tower of Monsters' is initially extremely charming and unique, but it runs out of steam way too fast to carry it through its already short campaign. While the aesthetic is terrific, the gameplay and humor don't work well enough to make the game terribly memorable. It's not a particularly bad game, but at best, it's a dull, mediocre footnote for a studio that's done far better work than this.
I'll admit I was looking forward to 'Super Dungeon Bros' before playing. I love the genre, and a caricatured metal mash-up could have been interesting, but the game disappoints on all fronts. I like how much emphasis React put on co-op but it needed more under the hood - more choices for character building, more control, more abilities, just more.
'Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India' takes a step back from the modest success of 'China'. The narrative adds little to the overall 'Assassin's Creed' storyline, most of the characters are thin, and the gameplay is inexplicably disheartening. Perhaps Ubisoft can eke out a victory with the Russian installment next month, but this entry isn't worth the price of admission.
Try as I might, even with my fervent obsession/love of the survival genre, 'Goliath' isn't doing anything for me. I very much want it to, because the idea of making big primitive mechs while doing typical crafty stuff actually sounds pretty good on paper. 'Goliath' comes up short on almost all fronts, unfortunately.
'Warhammer 40K' is a great franchise on paper but has struggled in video gaming, and 'Eternal Crusade' is on the lower end of the spectrum. It has the trappings of a freemium pvp game but asks for $50 just to get in the door. From the shoddy controls to the inscrutable mysteries of equipment, this is one shooter we cannot recommend, even for the most dire of 'Warhammer' fans.
I can see why some people like 'Hyper Light Drifter'. Its combination of nostalgia, pretty pixels, and cruel gameplay are an intoxicating drug to some. I'm not one of those people, unfortunately. As I played I felt like the annoying moviegoing companion, always asking for an explanation of events onscreen from fellow viewers also watching for the first time, equally mystified.
'No Time to Explain' has promising gameplay, and perhaps tinyBuild will be able to work it into something more manageable with future releases. As a precision platformer it struggles greatly on the Xbox One. It's not a bad game, and that just about sums it up.
Gameplay-wise, I was happy with this episode as a function of my relief. The controller brought me back into the world a number of times, and I found myself thinking for Clementine in the quieter moments, instead of only allowing the game to think for her in the louder ones. On the story side of things, if it's Telltale's intention to replicate within me the frustrations of a zombie apocalypse, then they've recently hired a genius. An evil genius. I was driven to murder at any possible moment I could over the course of 'Amid the Ruins,' but I'm pretty sure it's not a good thing to turn sociopathic during what is supposed to be an emotional journey.
Once multiplayer is up and running without any sizeable hiccups, I easily foresee 'Halo: The Master Chief Collection' taking its place as one of the finest releases for the Xbox One to date. That said, it's a partially complete package sold to consumers at full price. As fantastic as the campaigns are, and as intriguing as the Halo Channel appears to be, I wouldn't necessarily say it's worth $60 out the gate. I intend to continually return to multiplayer in the coming days and weeks for two reasons: one I love the 'Halo' series and multiplayer experience and two, because like the game itself, this is an incomplete review. Once multiplayer has settled itself in a firm state, this review will see a complete overhaul and final ranking set in stone. Until then, 'The Master Chief Collection' is simply worth a look.
It's fun enough to avoid being labeled a cheap cash-in or filler content for a season pass, but only just. 'Mooil Rig' has a great level design and setup that could have been used for a lot more. If developers want us to keep opening our wallets for games after they've released, they're going to have to pack in the content and make DLC that offers something genuinely novel or substantial, not just add some polishing before slapping a price tag on it.
Compared to the plug and play nature of the still awesome 'Excitebike', 'MotoGP 15' presents itself as one of those extremely detailed simulation titles that successfully attempts to suck the fun out of the genre. Don't get me wrong: 'MotoGP 2015' is mightily impressive, a virtual tour de force and a marvel to, well, marvel at. It's just so realistic and so real, that it ends up becoming soulless, mechanically, technologic and boring. After all, if you want this kind of realism, why don't you just pick up real-life motorcycle racing yourself?
New IPs can be a risky proposition. Add a new console into the mix and the idea becomes even more daunting. Although I applaud the developers of Japan Studio for taking this risk, 'Knack' simply was unable to live up to expectations, and its difficulty negates its possibilities as a great family title. The story was less than exciting, the gameplay was repetitive, and the entire experience felt like one big missed opportunity as a flagship game for the PlayStation 4. 'Knack' has some interesting moments, but they were short lived and never fully realized. Gamers picking up a PlayStation 4 shouldn't cross 'Knack' off their list, but they may want to start with a different title.
The fantasy RPG is more than a little crowded, and breaking into that genre is likely to be a difficult task. With the help of Focus Home Interactive, the marketing campaign behind 'Bound by Flame' raised more than a few eyebrows, including my own. Everything about the game had me interested and I was more than a little excited to occupy my time with this new adventure in between some of the bigger AAA titles still to release. Not without its shortcomings, 'Bound by Flame' is still an ambitious title for developer Spiders. It sets an interesting, albeit familiar, tone, and delivers an enjoyable and addictive combat system. Unfortunately, this being a grand adventure, the developers should have realized the importance a well-acted character can have on the final product. Had the game been voiced by more qualified actors 'Bound by Flame' could have become a major sleeper title for 2014. Instead, these poor performances have left an unfavorable impression. It's worth visiting for the combat mechanics, but staying for the duration may be a difficult task.
'Rise of the Dark Spark' might not reinvent the wheel in terms of third-person 'Transformers' action, in fact, in some cases it regresses, but it does offer up moments of sheer bliss, most notably its final act. Sadly, that's a very short portion of a game that feels much longer than the five to six hours I invested in my first campaign run-through. Add to that mediocre graphics and a wasted opportunity in multiplayer territory, and you have a game only for the most loyal Autobot or Decepticon supporter. Let us hope the battle surrounding Cybertron picks up where it left off and the next title restores the Transformers videogame legacy to its mark of high praise.