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All in all, Insane Robots' character and map designs are cute, and the grid overworld meta keeps the downtime interesting. The wide smattering of augments are a neat way to differentiate each fight. It's hard to ignore that the experience is marred by a trove of RNG dependencies. It feels a little too random at times, bordering less on “cool card game” and more on “Pengu1n of D00M.” But when everything falls into place, it's a fun, tactical experience that rewards smart, risky maneuvers. If you love card battlers and you've got time and patience to spare, Insane Robots deserves some attention.
Beyond the addictive, puzzle-like challenge of hitting those high scores, there's a fantastic sense of speed here. When you're belting around in the F1 car, just scraping past trucks and getting through minuscule gaps in the traffic, things feel suitably rewarding. It's just such a kick in the airbags that for every time that feeling reveals itself, there are two more times when you'll be frustrated by one of Danger Zone 2's bugs or general inconsistencies.
Overall, I would have to say not really. The puzzles themselves are this game's saving grace. I didn't have a bad time playing it, but I can't recommend it in good faith. If you're a huge puzzle fan, like me, there's something here for you. But in all honesty, there are plenty of puzzle games out there that wouldn't come with this big of an asterisk. Go play those. All of that said, a player's reaction to the narrative and hub world is going to be the big deciding factor for whether or not you think this game is good. The narrative and gameplay combined together detract from the experience of one another, resulting in something decent at best and eye-roll inducing at worst. The Spectrum Retreat really went for it, but a swing and a miss is still a miss.
At is cheap price point, with lenient difficulty, solid teaching tools, and accessible mechanics, I think Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai could be a great way for people who slip into the anime fan/fighting game novice venn diagram to get their feet wet in the genre without having to dive in too deep. As most of the game is about landing single, solid hits (although there are some linkable moves), players can focus on learning the basics, then on learning the very user-friendly Hougeki system to get a feel for things like juggling and wall-bouncing. From there, they can graduate to things like more complicated super motions, cancelling, and all the extra fun stuff that seasoned fighters get into, and Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai also supports to a degree. Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai is not a game that will be challenging Dragon Ball FighterZ or Street Fighter V for top spots at EVO any time soon, but it is a smaller, simpler, and cheaper title that fighting game upstarts and fans can use to effectively spread the good word of the quarter-circle.
Salary Man Escape is an interesting idea for a puzzle game, but its execution ends up being more along the lines of the very drudgery that it tries to parody, rather than the escape that video games promise. It relies a little bit too heavily in its physics, which creates object collision issues in the more complex later levels. Fortunately, the driving '80s Japanese pop soundtrack helped to drive away the feelings of frustration and boredom that threatened to overwhelm the Salary Man. When object collision isn't getting in the way, Salary Man Escape is an interesting VR puzzler, but like finding moments of respite in the nine to five, those moments are all too rare.
Defiance 2050 is a game I can get lost in and enjoy several hours in at a time, but it's mindless shooting and grinding that is the least difficult kind of gaming experience to locate in 2018. Sure, this game is free, but I can find a copy of The Division for not much more than free and get a similar, much more substantial experience.
Somehow, Christian Whitehead and team have made the definitive version of Sonic even more definitive. The genuinely challenging stages are chock-full of secrets, and will require multiple playthroughs to find everything they have to offer. The lengthy campaign may not have as stellar pacing as Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but it provides both nostalgia and fresh experiences. The limited lives make each death significant, though the bonus stages can easily be exploited to gain enough continues to render the threat of a true game over moot. These are small issues, to be sure – Sonic Mania Plus is the best Sonic game you can buy today.
But that feeling only lasts until you're accelerating out of the final corner like you've done sixty times without issue in this event and your bike decides for no reason at all to rear up like freakin' Seabiscuit, throwing you to the ground an inch from the finishing line. At that point, the promising feeling drips away, and you start to think that given this is the 15th racing game Milestone has released on PS4 in four years, we could be in for a real treat when they slow down and actually finish one.
Unfortunately, it seems to be spread a little thin and it makes a huge sacrifice to the narrative that its cute enemies can't quite make up for. It's still a good roguelike by any measure of the imagination, and the developers clearly know what they're doing. However, the good stuff is a little too easily obscured by the frustration that can pile on after you've been whacking away for hours. If you have the patience and a relationship with Touhou Project, then this is undoubtedly a good buy. If this will be your first introduction to either roguelikes or the Touhou girls, you may want to start with smaller prey.
Shining Resonance Refrain feels very much like a budget RPG. While it does some things really well such as well-written characters with excellent voice acting and awesome music, there are plenty of things that just don't really work. Combat is clunky and dull, the sidequests are mostly repetitive, and the game world feels surprisingly small. Unfortunately, this is a game that's unlikely to stick around in anyone's memory for very long.
The LEGO games have always been known for their little quirks, but when it comes to pushing a game out with a theater release, they're fairly sloppy. LEGO The Incredibles has all of the symptoms of a rushed game, but at least it doesn't have any game-breaking glitches. It's not a bad LEGO game, but it's nothing to write home about either. It's just incredibly okay, when it should just be incredible.
After a while Runbow definitely becomes more of the same, but, to its credit, what it offers is inherently fun. The constantly changing colors are intimidating at first but I was shocked at how quickly it became intuitive. There are a lot of good platformers out there, but what makes this unique is the fact that levels aren't difficult in their design, specifically. Instead, the challenge comes from your own ability to quickly think about the shifting environment and plan your next move. Runbow is about negotiating when to take your time and when to race into a rhythm. Sometimes it's about being careful, but more often than not, Runbow is the platforming equivalent of double dutch—it takes skill but once you get in a groove you can pull off some spectacular things. And, much like double dutch, it's a bit more fun when more people jump in. Whether you're a casual gamer or a platforming veteran, you'll find Runbow easy to pick up but hard to put down.
As backhanded as it may sound, Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-Tered Edition is far better than it has any right to be. The mechanics that originally made it heaps of fun still hold true today. Shedding the excessive complexities that accompany modern open-world games is a surprising breath of fresh, albeit dusty, air. Regardless of whether you are a red planet rookie or grizzled Martian veteran, you won't want to miss the opportunity to revisit this explosive gem. It really brings the house down.
When you're doing the same and cruising downhill through the beautiful countryside or fighting and clawing to get your wheels in front at the top of a grueling climb, Le Tour De France 2018 is enjoyable stuff. But outside of those times, it's yet another buggy and undercooked update for a title that had fallen off the pace a few iterations ago.
The Crew 2 is an improvement over its predecessor in most ways. It is truly a gearhead's playground, with plenty of customization and tweaking options, combined with arcade gameplay to give a more relaxed feeling. Rubber-banding AI can be annoying to deal with, an issue which is more evident in some events, like street races, than in others. Despite some flaws, The Crew 2 is a fun rush of whatever kind of racing players desire.
There's nothing wrong with the aesthetic of the game or its reliance on tired clichés to tell a story. It's truly done a decent job, but that's the crux of the problem – it's just okay. It's a fun title to whittle away some time with, and you may even find yourself warming up to your party members' impenetrable plastic hearts. However, it lacks a compelling narrative, balance, and combat variety necessary to make it as engaging as it should be. Rainbow Skies feels like a blast from the past, before we had mainstream exposure to the tactical titles that it's clearly drawn inspiration from. Nostalgia's all well and good if you're pining for a better time, but it feels like a return to an era that we've intentionally left behind.
This is one story that mystery-lovers won't want to miss, much less otome fans, as long as they're willing to slog through an introduction that runs slower than molasses in winter. (It's funny because the game is eternally in winter, you see.)
Ultimately, New Gundam Breaker does little to continue the good faith the past few Gundam games have worked so hard to garner. It's a charming game at times, and its characters are refreshingly simple. That's not enough to save it from itself, though, and the gameplay is well below what a game based entirely on building and piloting a Gundam should be. Hardcore fans will likely want to pick this one up simply because it has Gundam in the name, but for anyone else, this one should probably be avoided.
There are plenty of aspects of Kabounce to enjoy. The fast-paced action, stylistically exaggerated attacks and intense give-and-take help deliver a genuinely enjoyable experience. However, things tend to run out of steam rather quickly. If you are looking for an entertaining way to burn a few hours, look no further. If you have aspirations of extensive replayability, however, you will be better served rolling on by.
The Lost Child is like that car your friend really likes but is hideous to look at. It's made of different parts, some of them from a different kind of car entirely. It makes funny sounds, and the sound system is a disaster. But they've had that car for years, and it still somehow runs without any problems. This visual novel/dungeon-crawler/monster-catcher is a whole lot of stuff mashed together, sometimes to awkward results. But the real meat and potatoes, the monster-catching, is not only the glue that holds The Lost Child together, but it's also a big ol' can of elbow grease that pushes the whole package forward. It's not always fun to read or look at, but I can get lost in grinding, evolving, and purifying more demons for hours.