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The ultimate disappointment is that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan has a solid base. A good game could’ve been made with these combat mechanics, but sadly some abysmal level design makes this 4-hour game a complete chore to play. When an uninspired boss rush level is arguably the best part of the game, then you know something went wrong.
With Circuit Breakers, what you get for your money is a very, very basic twin-stick shooter that is missing a lot of what makes the best in the genre so special.
Overruled! has a few decent ideas in hand, the game-changing card system is especially quaint and brings much needed elements of luck to an easily mastered game. The local experience is phenomenal and proves to be close to couch warfare at its best, but simply falls flat on its face everywhere else.
[D]espite the fun character customizations, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 suffers from a number of issues, including laggy multiplayer, dipping frame-rates, and off-putting physics. Sorry, Tony, but nostalgia can't save you this time.
But when you're playing a character that chooses to do all the things you can make her do, she should have understandable reasons to do them. Elena doesn't, and that numbs most of the game. I don't think Whispering Willows intended for me to ask myself why I needed to keep playing for the majority of my time with it, but it did. It's the kind of game that lacks satisfying substance, the kind of game where all you can say is that you finished it.
NERO is not fun. NERO might have a powerful story. NERO might look pretty. But NERO is not fun. Nor enjoyable. Or engaging. Or really anything that may have driven me to want to keep playing. The only thing that kept me playing was the review, because dammit I'm a games writer and that's what I do. For its few successes in deep storytelling and pretty visuals, it fails to come together in any meaningful way. Less interactive than a game. Slower to consume than a book. Not as visual as a movie. NERO takes storytelling's greatest mediums and takes away the reasons you would use each particular canvas to tell a story. The result is a slow technical mess that has something deep to say but doesn't know how to say it.
As someone who plays every NHL yearly release all year long, it is unfortunate to see just how badly this has gone. I can somewhat understand taking out 6v6 online play if it wasn't ready, but taking out features in Be a GM or making Be a Pro completely unplayable is just ridiculous. If you are not a hockey fan at all but you want to slap around a few pucks, this might be the game for you. However, with all the lost features and left out modes, NHL fans might want to wait until everything is patched in to jump on this ship. EA Sports: it's in the game… eventually.
At the end of the day, Edge of Eternity just sort of is. There is nothing really memorable here, just a bunch of ideas that don’t really deliver much of a kick. The UI is just disastrous, turning any task into a kick in the privates and the combat is just flat, with nothing really exciting about it. The basic premise of the story is strong enough and the characters aren’t horrible, but the dialogue felt rushed far too often. Edge of Eternity as a game is something that I played, but I can’t say I really enjoyed much of it. It’s a big world sure, but there is not a lot to fill it up, leaving a lot of empty space. It’s not the worst game out there and that’s really the best you can say about it.
There are tons of other games that already do what Yuoni attempts to do, and do it way better. Spend your $20 there instead.
Balan Wonderworld feels like it's shrouded in mystery because there's a woeful lack of explanation for the majority of its mechanics. Nobody should be left looking for external guides to gather even the most basic information for a game aimed at children. When added to the frustrating management of the game's costumes (including those that can't jump in a platformer), its underdeveloped story, the overly simplistic platforming, and the tortuous Balan Bouts, this is a game that had promise but is ruined by a multitude of bizarre design decisions.
All of these problems turn the game from something promising into a mediocre experience that's less psychological horror than it is torture. There are better horror experiences out there.
Really, Eclipse: Edge of Light gives off all the feeling of an early VR game that was cool when it first released but hasn't stood the test of time.
The problem with Whipseey and the Lost Atlas is that it doesn't do anything to differentiate itself from the platformers it has clearly been inspired by. And despite looking, sounding and controlling wonderfully, Blowfish Studio's two dimensional platformer invites unflattering comparisons due to its lack of originality. It may be a fun way to spend an hour, but here is a reminder… Kirby's Adventure is an NES game from 1993 that is more than twice the length of Whipseey and the Lost Atlas.
Song of Memories is just such a bizarre game. It tries really hard to be different with it's sudden and drastic tonal shifts in storyline, but it's not a game that is going to be held up as one of the greats of its genre. Its sluggish early pacing, forgettable characters, and dull rhythm mini-game means that this can only really be recommended to the most die-hard of fans.
Fishing Sim World clearly has a number of issues, the most glaring being the developers at Dovetail forgot to make it fun.
While it has some good ideas that are well-intentioned and will surely provide some entertainment to die-hards, NASCAR Heat 3 is missing all those things and, in the wider scheme of racing games, is still several laps behind.
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.
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.
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.
The best similitude I can make regarding the remastered version of Titan Quest is that of a game that attempts to sneak into an era that has long passed it by. While a minimal amount of enjoyment can be had listening to the wayfarers and tradesmen across the many worlds that the hero visits, there are too many problems that stem from the game's now ancient design. While titles like Shadow of the Colossus can confidently hold their own in a decade that they were not intended for, it may be a bittersweet sign of the swift progression in the industry that most titles are just not good enough anymore.