Killa Penguin
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Simple words can’t alter the fact that this game is irredeemably bad and so far beneath DONTNOD’s previous efforts that it’s hard to believe the same studio is responsible.
[I]t’s obvious that a lot of effort was put into addressing criticisms while keeping the core of the game intact for those who enjoy a little grinding. The end result is a charmingly chaotic pixel shooter with different modes designed to accommodate different types of players.
Really, with a few tweaks this could become easily recommendable, but the inconsistency of the current experience, combined with some inexplicable slowdown that made carefully maneuvering around hazards more difficult and imprecise than it needed to be toward the end when levels would get busy, is just enough to cause me to hesitate.
Much of Towards The Pantheon is strange like that, and yet these assorted pieces of genre-defying weirdness all coalesce into something that, against all odds, functions as a coherent whole. Its strangeness makes it difficult to compare with other titles, though it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that it fits the Earthbound/Undertale mold to a certain extent in terms of presentation and tone.
Given a handful of patches, Safe House could become a bit of a flawed gem. Right now it requires dodging far too many random issues and complications to be recommendable.
I have to reach back 18 years and invoke Majora’s Mask in order to have something to meaningfully compare Omensight to. Not only do the deep hues of Omensight’s art style invite such comparisons, but the time travel loop has you similarly exploring the the same few areas during different parts of the same day and finding new things as a result. Granted, the structure here is entirely different, but the focus on a small cast of characters who are subjected to surprising moments of darkness (made more palatable by a veneer of quirky animal companions) hits many of the same buttons that Majora did.
“Odium” is a remarkably accurate name for a game like this, as its inadequate controls and constant stream of cheap shots conspire to turn certain levels into a maddeningly Sisyphean experience bound to infuriate anyone who values their time.
[Y]our chances of making it through Coffee Crisis without seeing a game over screen are frustratingly luck-dependent because of the way the game handles powerups.
RPGolf doesn’t make a particularly memorable first impression, but this is one of those games that exerts a certain pull that sees you continuing to play despite not understanding exactly why that is.
Looking at it now, there’s no denying that the amount of quality, complementary content here is staggering.
Basically, it’s a movement-based puzzle game where you’re tasked with using distractions to vandalize a spot and get away from police. Things obviously become more complicated as you go, but the difficulty is all over the place, confusingly enough; I had more trouble in one of the earlier levels than any of the mid-game levels ever gave me, and there are numerous difficulty spikes that combine with player-unfriendly mechanics to suck the joy out of the gameplay.
Tempest Citadel is a strategy game that defies a more detailed genre classification. In many ways it’s a 4X game, and yet it also infuses just enough XCOM elements into the end product that using either as an example of what to expect is ultimately misleading. There’s also a great deal of real-time strategy combat to take into consideration, though battles resolve automatically (by default—you can choose to jump in and micromanage at any point) based on the strategies you come up with beforehand. Other expectations you may have are likely to be similarly subverted.
That’s not to insinuate that my experience with Ash of Gods was anything resembling good, though, because this game is capable of disappointing entirely on its own merits. Everything about it fails in one way or another, from the confused analogies that read like a drunk Tolkien as performed by Google Translate to the combat alternating between being pointlessly easy and groan-inducingly tedious. The visuals and music are the only things that don’t disappoint in some way, but they alone can’t support this game’s full weight.
I was asked to review this, and while the results are exactly what you’d expect from throwing someone who’s dead inside at a tearjerker, it was at least interesting.
Originally released in October of 2017 for the PC, it’s now making its way to the Playstation 4/Vita, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, but I’m reviewing the PC version because it allows for a broader range of useful review experiences. Also, I was immediately struck by the art style, and in a flurry of naked enthusiasm, requested a key for it without doing my usual exhaustive research. You may notice that those two reasons are mutually exclusive, which might lead you to think that one of them is a lie or exaggeration, and I can think of no better way of explaining this game’s vibe than that; this is a game where all roads lead to something horrible and some mysteries are never resolved, but one in which such outcomes are consistent with the state of the world.
Everyone is selfish, and this is baked into the game to a certain degree—even a story in which the choices were clear and I was able to wrap things up in a less-selfish way was still plagued by flashbacks in which all of the characters acted in unreasonably selfish, egocentric ways. When I went to try and help someone, only for the game to interpret my aid attempt as an attempt to humiliate them, though, I mentally checked out of the entire experience.
Suffice it to say that Omen Exitio is a surprisingly engrossing adventure that hits several different story beats without ever losing steam or outlasting its welcome, and it’s the kind of game that sees both you and main character Jake Huntington go from wide-eyed military camaraderie to constant paranoia at every single (in-game) knock on the door.
This is game that makes random battles palatable (at least for the vast majority of the game) while simultaneously streamlining traditional jRPG mechanics and allowing new complexity to arise from those simplified parts of the game. It’s also incredibly player-friendly, with all party members gaining experience regardless of whether they participated in combat or not, but those who enjoy a challenge will be able to find it despite the early content being on the easy side. Really, this is a special game.
If you go by looks, it’d be easy to say that this is a game where the primary goal is survival, and that’s not wholly inaccurate early on. Once you’ve built up your defenses enough that the nightly monster attacks no longer pose a serious threat, however, what’s left is instead gameplay reminiscent of those browser clicker games that are so easy to get sucked into. You start by clicking to slowly obtain wood, but then you build a bonfire to draw workers to your little village. It’s not long before someone gives you a cart ensuring that workers can bring back more resources than they would otherwise, with this being just one of several job-specific equippables you’ll be crafting to increase worker productivity. This is less a game about survival than one of constant escalation, then, with the challenge coming more from pairing workers to tasks they’re suited to while balancing resource production than one where you’re constantly at risk.
Sadly, One Eyed Kutkh isn’t very good.