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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.
Jurassic World Evolution is – in many ways – the game that you make it. Fans of the franchise will jump for joy as they stumble across the classic original movie skins for the ranger jeeps while Dr. Ian Malcolm explains his theory on the meaning of life in a voiceover. They'll be so happy that a lot of the flaws can and will be overlooked by those people. For those who maybe only have a passing interest, there's still a solid and overly addictive game to be found, but they'll have to look past a fair few missed steps.
It somewhat goes without saying, but Unravel Two feels like the organic evolution of the franchise. The introduction of cooperative mechanics proved to be just enough change to keep things fresh, while still preserving what made the original so special. Weaving the matured puzzle design in amongst the already stunning art style produces a visual patchwork quilt that is unlike anything else on the market. If you can set aside the odd storytelling decisions and the occasional platforming quirk, Yarny's newest quest is one you won't want to miss.
At the end of the day, Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn is a cautionary tale. Jokes are not funny just because you say them. Nor are they funny just because they raised over $450K. But being not funny isn't a cardinal offense for a video game. Being dull and soulless mechanically is.
Taking large strides forward in terms of accessibility, MotoGP 18 regrettably has a lot of issues and is undoubtedly a casualty of the annual format. Cinematic, customization and an enhanced career mode are all done to such a minimum that they barely make any impact. Fine tuning your bike has worthy detail with the tracks themselves being better recreated than ever before, yet this only goes so far. Extended loading times, washed out textures, and an unobtainable online infrastructure crucify what could have been a fresh start for the franchise. Worst of all, the personalities behind the sport have not transcended whatsoever – taking away one of its greatest assets. If released in 2014, MotoGP 18 may have held up (apart from the atrocious online) and even be considered innovative. Nonetheless, this is 2018 and with so many games on the market, one of this quality cannot be recommended.
That's a question Earth Atlantis doesn't have an answer for. Perhaps the point, the game would like you to believe, is the “thrilling” boss battles. But if that's the case, these battles should've been more engaging and memorable—adrenaline-intoxicating, if you will. It seems Pixel Perfex wanted to create a boss rush game similar to Acid Nerve's Titan Souls or Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus but tossed the flood of mindless enemies in to keep you from sinking into the abyssal depths of boredom. Unfortunately, it's too late, as Earth Atlantis doesn't so much sink in the depths of the ocean as much as it drowns in the boring and tedious repetition it's so engulfed in.
With Conan Exiles, you're either in or you're out. There's a hardcore fanbase out there that loves this game, but there's an exceptionally high learning and enjoyment curve that will keep more casual players from getting invested enough to explore its deepest content or even wade around much in the shallow end. On a quality level, the game simply doesn't feel like it made it out of early access even though this is the full release. Add that the game is hardly optimized for controller and living room TV play, and this is a title that is hard to recommend outright. That said, for fans of survival games, there's a very intriguing game layered underneath walls, road bumps, and cliffs that need to be scaled to get there. And it's easy to lose hours of time simply figuring out how to build a house, or, you know, put on pants, but a lot of that can be chalked up to poor and barbaric design.