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Coffee Crisis is a throwback title that stays true to the intention of releasing a 16-bit brawler title with a hint of modern favor. I would have liked to see a bit more modern conveniences added to the gameplay, either through additional moves, either offensive or defensive. In my experience, the game's difficulty can spike quite high during some of the later stages on the higher difficulties, but the game is quite easy on the lower difficulty settings. If you are looking for a retro-inspired cooperative title to keep you busy for a couple of hours, Coffee Crisis is a good choice.
Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor Martyr nails the gothic and grim sci-fi 40K universe, but technical shortcomings and some poor design decisions hurt the overall experience. Online multiplayer, outside of playing with friends, is a nightmare to separate, especially since you'll be randomly dropped into a mission and thrown back to your local hub afterward. NeoCoreGames does have a fluid roadmap on the game's official website complete with seasonal events and content. There is also a season pass that will include new investigations, campaigns, loot emotes and even familiars (pets). Currently, there is a $3.99 servo-skull pet for purchase on the Xbox Store that doesn't appear in-game or crashes your game.
State of Decay 2's promise of improving upon the existing formula with cooperative gameplay, fails to capture our attention and ultimately is a disappointment. I've lost countless vehicles due to improper collusion in a mostly static environment. While there is an “I'm stuck” option for players, nothing can resolve anything with your car stuck between a table and a wall. There are too many systems that don't cohesively tie the package together. The game runs rather poorly, even on Xbox One X. The frame rate can undoubtedly dip well below 30 frames per second and is frequently under when on running on an Xbox One S. The included motion blur is way too aggressive, and even the slightest camera movement makes the visuals a blurry mess or swirling colors.
Black Mirror attempts to bring a horror-themed point-and-click adventure game to a new audience but is hampered by glaring technical setbacks. On more than one occasion, David had become stuck, only to seemingly slowly rotate himself in place with no way to free yourself. During one of the game's pivotal cutscenes, the game crashed with an alarmingly loud buzzing noise before crashing back to the Xbox home screen. Exploring the eerie mansion and the accompanying ground should be more enjoyable, but the frequent loading screens ruin the experience. If you can overlook these issues, I found the characters and the narrative quite compelling, but at the same time, there is no reason to play through the game multiple times.
For the price of a cup of coffee, Castle Steps provides a 15-minute amusement park quality ride through two separate haunted locations. I enjoyed the ghost-filled manor much more than the abandoned hospital, but both desperately need more player interaction. The candle-burning lantern provides you with minimal light in the darkened corridors, but outside of opening some doors or pulling a lever, you'll spend your time watching.
Theseus is a cinematic VR experience for the PlayStation VR, but is over all too soon. The atmosphere inside the labyrinth and beyond is incredible, you really need to see it, but the puzzles and exploration feel quite linear. Combat isn't overly complicated, but fighting multiple creatures at once can lead to frustrating deaths. There is a second ending in the game if you are able to locate all of the corpses scattered throughout.
Ancient Amuletor is an enjoyable PSVR experience but sorely lacks in terms of content. Playing alone or with others online is enjoyable, and I found all of the playable heroes to have their own purpose. Some are better for long-range attacks and others focus on waiting until the enemies come to them to dish out destruction. Multiplayer is the best way to play the game, but I've found it nigh impossible to find anyone else playing outside of launch week. It's a shame, as it is one of the better PlayStation VR games to be released if it had increased the amount of content in the game as well as add more variety to the gameplay.
Valkyria Revolution fails to live up to the previous games in the series, and although it serves as a spinoff, the new system mechanics don't blend. The narrative approach is admirable; however, most sequences are dull and feel lifeless. Not to mention, the long loading times between each sequence leads to quite a bit of down time before you need to pick up the controller.
Too often in Rain World, death does not feel warranted, as the ruthless creatures make any attempt to advance truly punishing. I felt that many times that there was simply no way to avoid dying, which in turns sets you back in your progress to locate new areas to explore. There are thrilling moments in the game, but the poor design decisions in the game hamper any enjoyment.
1-2-Switch seems like a missed opportunity. With 28 minigames in total, there are too many of them that are wasted and limited in terms of enjoyment, The couple that seems to be the most enjoyable grow stale over time when played with the same crowd. Sure, forcing eye contact while you are dueling in the wild west or milking cows produces many hilarious moments, but the lack of depth keeps it from being a must-play title. On top of that, the asking price is too high for what the game offers and would have been better suited as a pre-installed game.
The reliance on trial and error gameplay does a disservice to the disturbing setting that 2Dark creates. The lack of checkpoints is frustrating, and I fail to see how having them would have harmed the game’s tension. Simply having to replay large sections of levels or stopping to manual save after every room just isn’t fun. The combat could be improved if bonuses were provided if you were able to sneak up behind someone, but as it stands, melee attacks are too weak to be effective.
At the end of the day, Double Dragon IV feeds off the nostalgia of those that spent their youth playing the NES classic titles. While some may argue that the Arcade version of the game was a better version of Double Dragon, there is a certain charm to the 8-bit NES visuals and sound effects. If online multiplayer had been added to Double Dragon IV, it might have helped alleviate the lack of replay value the game suffers from.
Space Rift - Episode 1 is an ambitious space adventure title, but developer Vibrant Core falls short on the execution of their first game. Although relatively short, and lacking any reason to return, I did enjoy the mining aspect much more than the combat. The constant waves of enemies were more a nuisance, and I wish the game did away with the majority of combat encounters. Exploring derelict ships, salvaging abandoned equipment, and mining resources from ice-encrusted asteroids were much more enjoyable aspects of the game.
Developer TVR (Time of Virtual Reality) and publisher Oasis Game are already planning for the future with Ace Banana. Currently, the game only has a single-player mode, but a two-player online cooperative mode will be coming to the game in the coming months. As it stands today, Ace Banana is an entertaining arcade gallery shooting game for the PlayStation VR. The bright, colorful visuals work well with the artistic approach and characterized monkeys.
You'll probably not enjoy playing SportsBar VR if you only intend to play offline. The game was designed for friends to hangout and socialize online, and play some of the more popular bar games against each other. While it isn't a perfect substitution for hanging with friends in real life, for those with friends scattered across the country (or world) it can be an engaging experience. That said, I haven’t seen more than a couple of open lobbies at a time randomly throughout the day. With the holidays approaching, hopefully, it can help boost the game's online community.
What you’ll get out of Harmonix Music VR depends on whether you really enjoy listening to music while shutting your mind off in various types of visualizers with different levels of interaction. The Dance and The Easel are clearly going to be the most attractive and are ideal for group settings, while the strict visualizer ones -- The Beach and The Trip -- are meant for only the person in the HMD.
Even though Breach & Clear: Deadline released on PC initially last year, the visuals don't hold up on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. It's not a huge issue in these type of games, especially as long as the narrative and RPG elements were strong, but I felt like those pieces were just not enough to carry the game all the way through. It's not terrible, and I do enjoy many aspects of the game, but at the same time, I wouldn't exact anyone to rush home eagerly to play it either.
Although Jon St. John (known for voicing Duke Nukem) is the voice of Jack Boyd, I found myself not genuinely caring how the narrative played out. I thoroughly enjoyed the management sim portion of the game and could see myself play through a sandbox mode for quite some time, if one is ever added. Add randomized cases and crimes, and it could be something special, but as it is, the lack of true freedom in the narrative holds the game back. Having your playthrough cut short after only a handful of days because you wouldn’t listen to the mayor’s racist request is something that should not happen. Don’t give the player a false sense of choice when in practice there is only one way to play the game.
The Assembly is a decent attempt at crafting a world that should make players think about their actions. Just as I was thoroughly enjoying the narrative, however, and the secrets within the organization, the game comes to a close. The moral gray areas ensure that good vs. evil isn’t clearly defined and since there are multiple endings, you'll want to play through it more than once. The game’s length will vary depending on the player’s level of exploration, as I spent roughly four to five hours on my first time through the game..
Time Machine VR is an enjoyable trip back in time, however, I didn't feel the need to complete any exploration after finishing the story. It's an intriguing way to teach people about these creatures without opening a textbook, but the "game" side of it needs to be more fleshed out.